


There and Back Again (We messed it up a bit on the way)

by Super_Gay



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alex is a badass historian, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Chronicles of St Mary's AU, Crossover, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Lena's a genius, Sanvers - Freeform, Slow Burn, SuperCorp, Team as Family, lots of time travel, lots of woman
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 05:31:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 41,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14846726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Super_Gay/pseuds/Super_Gay
Summary: The disaster magnets of St Deo's include: Soon-to-be Historian Kara Danvers, Chief Technical Officer Lena Luthor, Historian extraordinaire Alex Danvers, Security Officers Maggie Sawyer and Sara Lance and the mostly harmless / definitely not a dominatrix Doctor Sam Arias.They don't do 'time-travel' - they 'investigate major historical events in contemporary time'. However they are more inclined to causing loud explosions when things get a bit too quiet.Follow the catastrophe curve from 11th-century London to World War I, and from the Cretaceous Period to the destruction of the Great Library at Alexandria. For wherever Historians go, chaos is sure to follow in their wake.... and maybe, amongst all that, out heroines might just find each other.A Chronicles of St Mary's AU





	1. Chapter 1

There have been two moments in Kara’s life. Moment’s when everything changed. Moments when it could have gone either way. Moments when she had to make a choice.

 

The first occurred when, after another disruptive day of school, Kara stood in front of her Principle, Ms Marsdin. She’d done the sullen silence thing, and waited for an expulsion, because she was long past three strikes and you’re out. But surprisingly, it appeared that this day was a day for 18th chances.

 

Ms Marsdin started with a strange urgency, “Kara, you can’t let your home circumstances define your entire life. You are intelligent, you have abilities of which you are not even aware. This may be your last chance. I can help you. Will you allow me to do so?”

 

Kara shuffled uncomfortably in her seat. No one had offered to help her before. Years had passed since her family had been murdered and she’d been thrown clear of the burning house. Years since her cousin had declined the offer to care for her, years of being passed around, each place as seemingly disinterested as the first.

 

This however, was a first, and something hopeful flickered inside her, but distrust and suspicion die hard.

 

Ms Marsdin lent forwards, threading her fingers together in front of her.

 

“I can help you. Last chance, Kara. Yes – or no?”

 

Kara sat, she felt like her brain was short circuiting and she was trapped inside a prison of her own making.

 

“Yes – or no?”

 

Kara took a shallow breath, she had no idea what was about to come out of her mouth. Would years of pain and anger win. Or would a painful naivety she’d been sheltering for what felt like a lifetime emerge triumphant.

 

“Yes.” She almost whispered.

 

Ms Marsdin sat back. Shoulders squared she reached into her desk drawer. She pulled out a book, a notepad, and three different coloured pens.

 

“We’ll start with Ancient Rome. Read the first three chapters, and Chapter Eight. You must learn to assimilate, edit and present information. I want 1500 words on the precise nature of the Aquaelicium.” She paused, and passed the pile to Kara, who sat, mouth agape.

 

“By Friday.”

 

“But…” Kara paused, a rush of shame flushed her face, before continuing in a breathy whisper. “You know I can’t take this home.”

 

“I’ve already phoned social services. Kara.” Ms Marsdin said, folding her hands in her lap.

 

“They’ll escort you to pick up your belongings at the end of this meeting, and you’re going to stay with some very good friends of mine. They’ll look after you.

 

Again, Kara sat there, brow furrowed in confusion.

 

“Why? Why would you do this?” Kara asked, staring at the book in her hands. Unable to meet the eyes of the woman. Eyes watering, and shame still burning to the tips of her ears.

 

“Because everybody is worth something Kara. And that includes you.”

____________________

That was the first time.

The second time came ten years later when her phone buzzed in her pocket.

**Alex [20:34]**

Kar? You up?

**Kara: [20:35]**

Yup. What’s up?

**Alex: [20:35]**

I need to talk to you about something.

**Kara [20:35]**

Ok….

Creepy, ominous.

All totally in character.

You realise you already came out to me yes?

 

**Alex [20:36]**

Don’t even try it Kar. You were a weeping gay mess as well, so zip it.

My boss wants to extend a job opportunity.

Now that you’re stateside for longer than 20 minutes. 

**Kara [20:37]**

Excuse me, I think you’ll find, I was a weepy bi-mess.

Why does the FBI have a job offer for me?

Is this because they don’t want me leaving the country.

I swear Alex, that bone in my luggage was super, super old.

**Alex [20:39]**

What. The. Hell.

Again? Did you not learn from the first time?

**Kara [20:41]**

Ok. So not the bone thing.

Job offer?

FBI?

SPILL.

**Alex [20:43]**

I can’t really tell you much, just that it’s not the FBI per say.

But the job would be incredible, and so far up your street.

**Kara [20:45]**

Since when are you not FBI?

We talk every day?!

You literally threaten to drag me back home if I don’t check in every 2 hours.

**Alex [20:47]**

Can you hear my eye roll from National City, because you should be able to?

Anyway, you know that weird campus in Midvale?

**Kara [20:48]**

Yeah. St. Deo’s.

**Alex [20:49]**

They have interviews next week for a researcher position.

And if you want one, you’ve got one.

**Kara [20:52]**

For real?

Are you telling me you can get me inside?

Because I’ve still got bets from high school that I need to settle.

Is it haunted? Possessed? A film set?

OH! Is it a secret training ground for the CIA.

**Kara [21:01]**

Alex?!

 

If anyone thought to ask Kara when her life changed forever, she would always say the day she moved in with the Danvers and then the day she walked through the gates of St. Deogratius.

 

She stood at the large iron gate and tugged gently at the messenger bag over her shoulder.

 

She read the sign slowly.

 

National City University

Institute of Historical Research

St. Deogratius Campus

Director: Doctor J’onn J’onzz BA MA PhD

 

She sure hoped Alex was in there somewhere, because as it was, she was at risk of turning on her heel and running back to a dig in the depths of the Amazon. Again

 

Kara reached up to ring the buzzer and a voice said; “Can I help you miss?”

 

“Yes. Hi. Um – I’m Kara Danvers. I have an appointment with Doctor J’onzz at 2.”

 

“Go straight up the drive and through the front door. You can’t miss it.”

 

“A tad optimistic there _.”_ Kara said under her breath. “I once got lost on a staircase.”

 

The drive felt like it was never-ending, the trees on either side of the drive were shielding her from the early summer sun. Everything appeared to be neat and well maintained, until the trees dropped away and a large expanse of open land sprawled before her. There were odd craters, with sparsely regrown grass, in the distance the sun glistened of a lake.

 

The closer she got to the main building, the more her nerves grew. Here she was for an interview she knew next to nothing about. And despite how much she loved her big sister, Alex was proving she’d grown immune to the pout and junk food bribery of their teens, and was telling her exactly _nothing_ about what she was walking into.

 

Kara came to a stop before the grand stone steps leading to the main entrance. Quickly she checked her shirt was still neatly tucked into her trousers, straightened her glasses, and double checked that she had all the documentation she was told to bring.

 

At the front door, she signed in and was politely wanded by a unformed guard. Kara did her best to look harmless and it must have worked, because she was escorted through the vestibule into the Hall.

 

Kara felt her face split into a wide grin when she saw who waiting for her

  
“Ms Marsdin?!”

 

“Miss –“ she paused for a second before correcting herself. “ _Doctor_ Danvers.”

 

Kara’s old principle stood before her, looking barely a day older than when Kara had sat in her office a decade ago. She smiled and stuck a hand out for Kara to shake and had the good grace to look nothing more than bewildered when the blonde pulled her in for a hug.

 

“What are you even doing here?” Kara asked, finally releasing her mentor.

 

“I’m here to offer you a tour before the interview.”

 

“Wait. Does everyone I know actually work here?”

 

“I’m loosely attached, I assist in recruitment every now and then. I’ve been keeping a very close eye on you Kara.”

 

Kara blushed, unsure of what else to say to one of the women who she credits with saving her life.

 

“So. Tour?”

 

Kara nodded, enthusiastically.

 

“This way.”

 

Kara followed Ms Marsdin as she walked away. The building was huge, the echoing central Hall was part of the original building with typical gothic revival windows. At the far end, an ornate oak staircase with ten shallow steps and a broad half landing branched off left and right to a gallery running around all four sides of the hall.

 

Various rooms opened off this gallery, an entire suite seemed to be devoted to costumes and equipment. People trotted busily with armfuls of cloth and mouthfuls of pins. Garments in varying stages of completion hung from hangers or from tailor’s dummies. The rooms were bright, sunny and full of chatter.

 

“We do a lot of work for TV.” A short man with long dark hair rushed towards them, waving around a large pair of scissors and looking slightly on the wrong side of caffeinated.

 

“Cisco Ramone, at your service.” He pocketed the scissors in a way that made Kara worry he’d skewered himself. “I’m in charge of wardrobe. Sometimes they only want research, and we send them details of appropriate costumes and materials, but sometimes we get to make them too.” He grinned and spun on his heels.

 

“This one for instance, is for an historical adaption of the life of Charles II and the Restoration. Lots of boobs. Lots of sex.” He took a second, looking at the dress he’d pulled from the rack. He nodded his head in approval. “This dress is for Nell Gwynn in her ‘orange’ period and that one for the French strumpet. Louise de Kerouaille.”

 

“It’s beautiful,” Kara said softly, carefully not touching the material. “The detail is just. Wow.”

 

She looked up at Cisco who was beaming with pride. She almost hated to rain on his parade.

 

“Sadly, it’s a tad too modern for me.”

 

“Dr Danvers, is Ancient History,” Said Ms Marsdin, almost apologetically.

 

“Danvers?” Cisco said.

 

“You might know my sister?” Kara asks, and she smiles as Cisco’s eyes widen with realization.

 

“That’d be it.” He nodded to himself, satisfied.

 

“Oh, and for ancients we do drapery, togas, oh and tunics, but…” He tailed off, tendrils of disappointment, taking his imagination elsewhere. Upon realising the conversation was over, Ms Marsdin shuffled them back into the corridor.

 

The next room turned out to be Research and Development.

 

“Kara, I’d like for you to meet, Professor Hunter. He’s in charge of Research and Development.”

 

 _Is this a wind up?_ Kara thought with a tilt of the head.

 

Before her stood Hunter, a tall and slim man, whose hair was stuck up at every possible angle, barely tamed by the pair of safety goggles perched on his forehead. He was so typically the image of an eccentric professor, that Kara was convinced she was being pranked. In hindsight, Kara probably should have taken the lack of eyebrows on the man as a bit of a clue as to what lay within the walls of R&D.

 

But he smiled kindly and invited them in for a closer look at his cluttered kingdom. He gently directed Kara inside by her elbow and she caught a tantalising glimpse of a buried desk, books everywhere, and further inside, a laboratory-type set up.

 

“Dr. Danvers hasn’t had her interview yet,” said Ms Marsdin, almost a warning.

 

“Oh, oh, right, yes, no, I see.” He said, releasing Kara’s elbow. “Well, this is what I tend to think of as “practical” history. The secret of Greek Fire? We’re on it. How did a roman chariot handle? We’ll build you one and you find out for yourself.” He took an excited breath, and Kara felt herself just nodding along, her eyes getting wider and wider with every statement.

 

“What range does a trebuchet have? Exactly how far can you fling a dead cow? How long does it take to pull someone’s brains out through their nose? Any questions like that then you come to me and we’ll find your answers for you! That’s what we do!”

 

One of his expansively waving arms caught a beaker of something murky and yellow.

 

_What on earth is that? Embalming fluid, the Elixir of Life… Socrates’ hemlock?_

 

Before Kara could finish the thought, the beaker shattered on the floor. Everyone took a step back. The liquid bubbled, hissed and looked as if it was eating through the floor. Kara briefly glimpsed the rest of the floor, and with wide eyes noted several other similar damp patches.

 

“Shit. Jax!”

 

“Jax!”

 

“Jackson! Pop downstairs and give my compliments to Gideon. Let her know it’s coming through her ceiling again!”

 

A young man who had been hunched over a workbench at the back of the room sprang to his feet and threaded his way through the tangle of half-completed models, unidentifiable equipment, tottering piles of books and smudged whiteboards. He grinned at Kara as he passed, Kara raised a hand to wave before he fled the room.

 

Kara relaxed the more the tour continued, everyone seemed incredibly friendly, if not the most eccentric group of people Kara had ever had the pleasure of meeting. The only thing that struck Kara as odd, was Ms Marsdin preceding every introduction with the warning that she hadn’t had the interview yet. Everyone shook her hand, smiled politely, looked slightly befuddled at the mention of her name, but not once did Kara make it past a doorway.

 

By far the highlight of the tour. At least from Kara’s perspective, was when she was shown the dining hall. A short, stout woman introduced as Mrs Mack, informed Kara that meals were available twenty-four hours a day.

 

Kara grinned, her eyes widening further at the thought of all the food, all the time. She briefly entertained the thought about why a historical establishment such as this would need twenty-four-hour access to food. Then she remembered her final year of her undergrad where she was effectively nocturnal.

 

“Don’t you worry Mrs Mack, you’ll be sick of the sight of me in no time.” Mrs Mack swatted her shoulder affectionately, as Kara lost herself in the menu chalked onto the wall. She almost caught herself drooling before she was jolted from her reverie.

 

“You’d best be on your way Kara, you’re being left behind.” Kara saw that Ms Marsdin was already exiting into the next room. Kara grinned apologetically and jogged to catch up.

 

The bar and lounge next door were nearly the same size as the dining room.

 

_Glad to see they have their priorities sorted out._

 

Everything was shabby through heavy use and lack of money, but the bar particularly so. She thought she spied a karaoke machine in behind a curtain that had certainly seen better days, but perhaps that was just wishful thinking.

 

Further down the same corridor, a small shop sold paperbacks, chocolate, toiletries and the essential items, and just beyond that lay Kara’s second favourite room. Second only to the dining room that is.

 

Kara fell in love with the Library, which, together with the Hall, obviously constituted the heart of the building. High ceilings made it spacious and a huge fireplace made it cosy.

 

Comfortable chairs were scattered around and tall windows all along one wall let the sunshine flood in. As well as bays of books they held all the latest electronic retrieval systems, study areas, and data tables and through an archway, a huge archive.

 

“You name it, we’ve got it somewhere,” said Gideon. She’d introduced himself as Librarian, Archivist and all-round know it all.

 

“At least, we’ve got it until that idiot upstairs blows us all sky high. Do you know we sometimes have to wear hard hats?”  She continued indignantly. “I keep telling J’onn, he should house him and his entire team of madmen on the other side of Hawking if we’re to have any chance of survival at all.”

 

“Dr Danvers hasn’t had the interview yet,” interrupted Ms Marsdin, and Gideon subsided into vague muttering.

 

 _Is she speaking Latin?_ Kara asked herself as she stared somewhat anxiously at the ceiling, which did appear to be blotched and stained, but so far nothing seemed to be eating its way through the fabric of the, most definitely, listed building.

 

“Did they tell you?” She demanded. “Last year his research team attempted to reproduce the Russian guns at the Charge of the Light Brigade, miscalculated the range, and demolished the Clock Tower?”

 

“No,” Kara said, answering what she suspected was a rhetorical question. “I’m sorry, I think I might’ve missed that part of the tour.” Ms Marsdin, swiftly removed them both from the room, as she too stared warily at the ceiling.

 

As they stopped at the entrance to a long corridor, which seemingly lead to a sperate, more modern part of campus. “What’s down there?” Kara asked, standing on her tiptoes, to get a better view.

 

“That’s the hangar. All the technical equipment is stored in there. There’s no time to see it at the moment; we should be heading to Dr Jon’zz’ office.”

 

Kara was lost in thought, thinking about the botched communications that resulted in the Charge of the Light Brigade when she realised someone was speaking to her.

 

A woman of medium height, with dark hair, and the most remarkable green eyes was smirking at her. She wore an orange jumpsuit, and unlike almost everyone else Kara had met, she had eyebrows.

  
“I’m so sorry.” Kara said, “I was thinking about the Crimea.”

 

She raised one of those perfect eyebrows. “You should fit right in here.”

 

“Chief, this is Dr Danvers – “

 

Kara jumped in before Ms Marsdin could continue. “I haven’t had the interview yet,” She said, just to let them know she’d been paying attention.

 

The Chief’s mouth twitched at one corner.

 

“Dr Danvers, this is our Chief Technical Officer, Lena Luthor.”

 

Kara stuck out her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Luthor.”

 

“Most people just call me Chief, Doctor.” She reached out slowly, and they shook hands. Kara thought her hand felt warm, dry and almost hard with calluses. And she couldn’t bring herself to let go.

 

“Welcome to St Deo’s.”

 

The two women were stood there, still holding hands when Ms Marsdin cleared her throat.

 

“Dr J’onzz will be waiting.”

 

Kara nodded, reluctantly letting go, her gaze however wouldn’t be moved.

 

It was Lena in the end who moved away, with a nod and a small wave.

 

“Come along Doctor Danvers.” Kara followed Ms Marsdin down the corridor, peering over her shoulder trying to get one last glimpse.

 

_________________

Dr J’onn J’onzz stood with his back to the door, hands behind his back as he stood at a window overlooking the front lawn. He was tall, broad shouldered and even from the back looked very unlikely to take any nonsense. Away off to the side with a tablet in front of her, sat a formidable looking woman in a tailored skirt and white blouse. For all intents and purposes, she looked elegant, dignified and judgemental.

 

Dr J’onzz turned around, leaning heavily on a cane and extending a large hand towards Kara.

 

“Dr Danvers, welcome. Thank you for coming.” His voice was quiet but clear, carrying immense authority. Kara got the impression that he was not a man who had to raise his voice for attention. His sharp eyes assessed Kara, and his face gave her no clue as to his conclusions.

 

Kara picked at a loose thread on the inside of her sleeve. She doesn’t normally come across well in interviews, or first meetings in general, she tends to start talking and not stop, rambling herself into a corner. It was this habit of hers that led to her developing an overly cautious, keep your mouth shut and answer in short sentences approach.

 

“Thank-you for the invite, Doctor J’onzz.” Kara nodded, she might be nervous, but she still had manners.

 

“This is Ms Grant, she is our Chief of Staff. I can assure you she runs this place far better than I do.” He pointed towards two overstuffed arm chairs. “Shall we sit.”

 

They settled themselves down and the interview began.

 

For the first hour, they talked about Kara. She got the impression that having a small adopted family, two sets of dead parents, a sister who was clearly working within the organisation, and no real personal ties outside of that constituted a point in her favour. He already had details of Kara’s qualifications, and they briefly talked about the post-grad stuff in archaeology, anthropology and her work experience and travels.

 

Kara raised an eyebrow when his line of questioning was focused on how she found living in other countries, and amongst other cultures. He asked her how easy she found picking up other languages and making herself understood. Whether she ever felt isolated amongst other communities, how she got around and how long did it take to become assimilated.

 

Kara was guarded, she didn’t want to explain to this near stranger that she was very adaptable. She’d been shifted into 7 different foster homes in 4 years, learnt how to survive in a whole host of different scenarios and how against all the odds she had.

That since she’d become a Danvers, isolation and making herself understood had stopped being a problem. Since Alex had taught her how to see the world in something other than murky greys, she made the conscious decision to see the best in people, when most of her life had taught her to be cynical.

 

Dr J’onzz seemed to recognise her discomfort and moved the conversation on instead of pushing her further.

  
“Why did you choose history, Dr Danvers? With all the exciting developments in the Space Programme over the last ten years, and the Mars Project in its final stages, what made you choose to look backwards instead of forwards?”

 

Kara paused, arranging and editing her thoughts. She was eight. It had been a bad Christmas. Her parents had been arguing with her Aunt’s husband, she refused to call him her Uncle. They’d shoved her into the cupboard when he’d shown up, yelling and shouting. Kara’s father would eventually force him from the house. It wasn’t the first time this had happened and it wouldn’t be the last. No, the last would be much more catastrophic.  

 

But she’d been cowering with her hands clamped over her ears when she felt something unfamiliar dig into her back. She’d wriggled about and pulled out a small book – _Henry V and the Battle of Agincourt_. Kara had read and re-read that book until it had nearly fallen apart. She never discovered where it had come from, there were no other books like it around the house. Her father was a scientist and her mother had been a lawyer, history was very rarely mentioned let alone a hobby enough for random books.

 

That book had awoken her love for history and would start a train of events that would – eventually -  get her life back on track. She still had it. The one thing she’d saved from her dumpster fire of an early childhood. Studying history had opened doors to other worlds, and other times and this in turn became her escape, her passion.

 

She also didn’t want to tell him, that her father’s love of space had been such a formative part of her childhood. Lying in the backyard, with him pointing out constellations, and dreaming of all the possible lives being lived in the cosmos. He had such a passion, such a love for it. That the thought of Space now made her feel alone, sad and above all things, angry.

 

Instead of word vomiting that in front of her prospective employer. She pruned that all down into three short, impersonal sentences.

 

From there, they moved onto St Deo’s. Dr J’onzz outlined the functions and the set-up, giving the impression of a large, lively and above all, unconventional organisation.

 

Kara found herself becoming more and more interested. There wasn’t any particular moment she could identity, but as he continued on, she began to get the feeling she was missing something. This was a big campus, they had an entire security section, twenty-four-hour meals and a technical department.

 

Dr J’onzz paused. Kara was beginning to think he was psychic, he was picking up on her every hesitation and momentary mind wander.

 

“Any questions Dr Danvers?”

 

“Yes,” she said. “What’s Hawking?”

 

He didn’t answer for a while, then he pushed himself back slightly and looked across at Ms Grant. She put down the tablet and left the room. Kara watched her go and then looked back at him. Something had changed.

 

“How do you know about Hawking?”

 

“Well,” Kara said, slowly. “It’s not common knowledge of course, but…” and she let the sentence die away. Nine times out of ten that works, but sadly, not this time. Instead, Dr J’onzz just stared at Kara, and the silence lengthened. So, Kara continued. “It just seems strange that a hangar in an historical establishment is named after a famous physicist.”

 

Still no response, but now Kara wasn’t going to say anything either. She was determined not to fill it with mindless rambling. So instead, they gazed at each other for a while, and it could have continued indefinitely but at that moment, Ms Grant reappeared clutching a file, which she passed to Dr J’onzz. He opened it and spread the papers out across a low table between them.

 

“Dr Danvers, I don’t know what you’ve been told, but perhaps you could tell me what you do know.”

 

He’d called her bluff.

 

“Absolutely nothing,” she said. “I heard the name mentioned and wondered. I’m also wondering why there’s so many staff here. Why do you need so many security guards and technicians? Why did every person I met have to know that I haven’t had ‘the interview yet’? What is actually happening here?”

 

“I’m quite prepared to tell you everything you want to know, Doctor Danvers. But first I must inform you that unless you sign these papers, I’ll be unable to do so.” He nodded towards the document.

 

“Please be aware that these documents are legally binding. The wording seems to be obscure legalese, but, make no mistake, if you ever divulge one word of what I’m about to tell you now, then you will spend the next fifteen years, at least, in an establishment the existence of which no civil liberties organisation is even aware. Please take a moment to think very carefully before proceeding.”

  
Thinking carefully tends to be something that happens to other people, but not Kara.

 

“Do you have a pen?”

 

The obliging Ms Grant produced one and Kara signed and initialled an enormous number of documents. She took the pen back off Kara with a look down her nose.

 

“And now,” he said. “Some coffee.”

 

By now, afternoon had become early evening. This was taking far longer than a simple researching job warranted. It was becoming ever more apparent to Kara that this was not a simple researching job. She felt a surge of anticipation, something excitement was about to happen.

 

Dr J’onzz cleared his throat. “Since you haven’t had the sense to run for the hills, you’ll now have the ‘other’ tour.”

 

“And this would be the ‘other’ interview?” Kara asked her fingers creasing into air quotes.

 

He smiled slightly and added some sugar to his coffee.

 

“Have you ever thought that instead of research and archaeology and, let’s face it, guesswork, how much better it would be if we could actually return to any historical event and witness it for ourselves? To be able to say with authority, ‘Yes, there was someone on the grassy knoll. And I know this because I saw them with my own eyes.”

 

“Of course.” Kara agreed. “It would; although – “she paused, weighing her next thoughts carefully. “I can think of a few examples where such certainty would not be for the better.”

 

“And those are?” Dr J’onzz questioned, setting his coffee back on the table, and eyeing her with barely disguised curiousity.

 

Kara thought she’d put her foot in it and gulped before she explained herself.

 

“Well, for example. I guess – A certain stable in Bethlehem. Imagine if you got yourself there, phone in hand and an innkeeper flung open a door and said, ‘Come on in, you’re my only guests, there’s loads of room at the inn.’ I imagine that would rock the boat a bit?”

 

“An understatement.” Said Dr J’onzz. “But you’ve grasped the delicacies of the situation.”

 

“So.”  Kara said, eyeing him closely, “Maybe its good there’s no such thing as time travel.

He raised his eyebrows slightly.

Kara felt the need to expand her statement. “Or should I say, no such thing as publicly accessible time-travel.”

 

That seemed to satisfy Dr J’onzz, who relaxed a bit around the shoulders.

 

“Exactly. Although we try to avoid ‘time-travel’, it gets certain members of staff a tad over-excited.” Dr J’onzz quirked an eyebrow and Kara got the distinct impression he was thinking of someone very specifically.

 

“So, here at St Deo’s we investigate major historical events in contemporary time.”

 

 _Oh of course, that makes perfect sense._ Kara had to hold herself back from both rolling her eyes and jumping around like an absolute over-excited loon. Despite having her deepest suspicions confirmed, Kara couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing.

 

“So tell me, Dr Danvers, if the whole of history lay before, where would you go? What would you like to see?”

 

“The Trojan War,” she said, words spilling out of her mouth. “Or the Spartans’ stand at Thermopylae. Or Henry at Agincourt. Or Stonehenge. Or the pyramids being built. Or see Persepolis before it burned. Or Hannibal getting his elephants over the Alps. Or go to Ur and find Abraham, the father of everything.” She paused for breath. “I could make you a wish list.”

 

He smiled thinly. “Perhaps one day I’ll ask you for one.”

 

He set down his cup. He was feeling his way through the interview, summing her up, drip-feeding information, watching her reactions. Kara thought she must have done something right because his next statement took her by surprise.

 

“As a matter of interest, if you were offered the opportunity to visit one of the exciting events listed, would you take it?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Just like that? Some people feel it necessary to ask about their safety. Some people laugh. Most express disbelief.”

 

“No,” Kara said slowly. “I don’t not believe you. I think it’s definitely possible, I just didn’t know that someone had already cracked it.”

 

He smiled, but said nothing, so Kara soldiered on. “What happens if you can’t get back?”

 

He looked at her with what she presumed was pity. “Actually, that’s the smallest of the problems.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“Yes. The technology has been around for quite some time. The biggest problem, oddly enough, is History itself.”

 

Kara nodded and thought briefly of a quote her mother used to say. _It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt_.

 

“Think of History as a living organism, with its own defence mechanisms. History will not allow anything to change events that have already taken place. If History thinks, even for one moment, that that is about to occur, then it will, without hesitation, eliminate the threatening virus. Or historians, as we like to call them.”

 

Kara tilted her head to the side almost begging him to continue.

 

“And it’s easy.” He continued. “How difficult is it to cause a ten-ton block of stone to fall onto a potentially threatening historian observing the construction of Stonehenge? Another cup?”

 

“Yes, please,” Kara said. _If he can calmly predict death by crushing, I am in no way going to react. Steady hand Kara. Steady hand._

 

She held out her cup as J’onn poured her some more filtered coffee, forcing her hand to remain as still as possible.

 

“So,” he said, replacing the pot. “Let me ask you again. Suppose you were offered the opportunity to visit sixteenth-century London to witness, say, the coronation parade of Elizabeth I – “ _So it’s not all blood and battlefields, good to know_. “- would you still want to go?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You understand very clearly that this would be on an observation and documentation basis only? Interaction of any kind is not only extremely unwise, it is usually strictly forbidden.”

 

“If I was to be offered the chance. I would understand that, pretty clearly.”

 

“Please be as honest as possible, is this admirable calm because deep down, very deep down, you think I’m clearly insane and this is going to be one to tell in the bar tonight?”

 

“Actually, Dr J’onzz, deep down, very deep down, I’m having an absolute dance party.”

 

He laughed, and stood slowly, pointing to the door.

 

Kara stood and walked into Ms Grant’s office. Waiting in the dark sat the quiet woman from earlier with the startling eyes.

 

“I’ll leave you with the Chief,” Dr J’onzz said, gathering up some papers and data cubes. “You’re in for an interesting afternoon, Dr Danvers. Enjoy.”

 

They left his office and headed down the long corridor Kara had noticed before. She was overcome by the sensation that she was entering another world. The windows, set at regular intervals along one side, cast pools of sunlight along the floor, and they passed from light to dark, from warm to cool, from this world into another. At the end of the corridor was a key-coded door.

 

Kara averted her eyes, as the woman next to her inputted her code. Together they entered a large foyer area with another set of big doors opposite.

 

“Blast doors,” she said, causally.

 

 _Of course, what was I thinking? Every historical establishment needs blast doors_. Kara mentally facepalmed with an eye roll.

 

On her right, a flight of stairs led upwards with a large, hospital-sized lift alongside. “To Sick Bay,” she said. On the left, a corridor with a few unlabelled doors, disappeared into the gloom.

 

“This way,” she said. And Kara wondered whether the woman ever said more than two or three words together?

 

The big doors opened into a huge, echoing, hangar-style space. Kara could see two glassed-in areas at the far end.

 

“Those are offices. One for IT,” the Chief gestured to the left room. “And one for us technicians.” She gestured right.

 

An overhead gantry ran down one side with three or four blue jump-suited figures leaning on the rail. They appeared to be waiting for something. She couldn’t help but look for Alex. What coloured jumpsuit would she be wearing. Where was she? Alex was hardly the most conspicuous person and clearly everyone here knew of her existence.

 

“Historians,” she said, following Kara’s stare. “They wear blue. Technicians wear orange, IT is in black and Security wears green. Number three is due back soon. This is the welcoming committee.”

 

“That’s … cool?” Kara said.

 

Lena frowned. “It’s a difficult and dangerous job. There’s no support structure for what we do. We have to look after each other, hence the welcoming committee; to show support and to talk them down.”

 

“Down from what?” Kara’s brow crinkled.

 

“From whatever happened to the crew on this assignment.”

 

“How do you know something happened?”

 

Lena sighed. “They’re historians. Something always happens.”

 

Ranged down each side of the hangar stood two rows of raised plinths. Huge, thick, black cables snaked around them and coiled off into dim recesses. Some plinths were empty; others had small hut-like structures squatting on them. Each was slightly different in size or shape and each one looked like a small, dingy shack, stone-built, flat-roofed with no windows; the sort of structure that could be at home anywhere from the Mesopotamian Ur to a modern urban allotment. Prop a rickety, hand-made ladder against a wall and with a broken wheel by the door and a couple of chickens pecking around, it would be totally invisible.

 

“And what are these?” Kara asked, gesturing.

 

Lena smiled properly for the first time. “These are our base of operations. We call them pods. When on assignment, our historians live and work in these. Numbers One and Two.” She pointed. “We usually use as simulators and for training purposes, because they’re small and basic. Pod Three is due back anytime now. Pod Five is being prepped to go out. Pod Six is out. Pod Eight is also out.”

 

“Where are Pods Four and Seven?”

 

She said quietly, “Lost,” and stood in silence. Kara thought she could almost hear the dust motes dancing in the quiet shafts of sunlight.

 

“When you say “lost”, do you mean you don’t know where they are, or they never came back for some reason?”

 

“Either. Or both. Four went to twelfth-century Jerusalem as part of an assignment on the Crusades. They never reported back and all subsequent rescue attempts failed. Seven jumped to early Roman Britain, St Albans, and we never found them either.”

 

“But you looked?”

 

“Of course we looked. For weeks afterwards. We never leave our people behind. But we never found them, or their pods.”

 

“How many people did you lose?”

 

“In those two incidents, five historians altogether. Their names are on the Boards in the chapel.”

 

Kara’s frown deepened. Lena noticed the look of confusion. “They’re our Roll of Honour for those who don’t come back, or die, or both. Our attrition rate is high. Did Dr J’onzz not mention this?”

 

“Yes,” Kara said. “He…” Kara was going to ask how high, but a light began flashing over the plinth marked Three.

 

Orange figures appeared from nowhere it seemed, lugging umbilical’s, cables, flatbeds and other tools of the trade. And quietly, with no fuss, no fanfare, and certainly no TARDIS noises, Pod Three materialised on its plinth.

 

Nothing happened.

 

Kara looked towards Lena. “Um…”

 

“We don’t go in. They come out.”

 

“Why?”

 

“They need to decontaminate. You know, plague, smallpox, cholera, all the fun stuff. We shouldn’t go in until they do.”

 

“But what if they’re injured?”

 

As if answering her question the door opened and a voice shouted, “Medic!”

 

Orange technicians parted like the Red Sea and two apparent medics trotted down the hangar. They disappeared into the pod.

 

“What’s happening? Who’s in there?”

 

“Number Three? That would be Davidson and Reynolds, returning from early 20th-century China, the Boxer Rebellion. It looks as if they require medical attention, but not seriously.”

 

“How do you know?”

 

“When you’ve seen as many returns as we have, you get a feel for it. They’ll be fine.”

 

They both stood in silence watching the door until eventually two people, a man and a woman, dressed in oriental clothing, limped out. One had a dressing over one eye and the other’s arm was strapped up. They both looked up at the gantry and waved. The blue people waved and shouted insults. As the pair and the medics headed off., orange technicians swarmed around the pod

 

“Would you like to have a look?”

 

“Yes, please.”

 

Close up, the pod looked even more anonymous and unimposing than it had been from the other end of the hangar.

 

“Door,” The chief said and a battered-looking, wooden-looking door swung soundlessly open. After the enormous hangar, the inside of the pod seemed small and constricted.

 

“The toilet and shower room are in there,” she said, pointing to a partitioned corner. “Here we have the controls.”

  
A console with an incomprehensible array of read-outs, flashing lights, dials and switches sat beneath a large, wall-mounted screen. The external cameras now showed only a view of the hangar. Two scuffed and uncomfortable looking swivel seats were fixed to the floor in the front of the controls.

 

“The computer can be operated manually or voice activated if you want someone to talk to. There are lockers around the walls with all the equipment required for your assignment. Sleeping modules here pull out when needed, this pod can sleep up to three reasonably comfortably, four at a push.

 

Bunches of cables ran up the walls to disappear into a tiled ceiling.

 

In amongst the welter of slightly scruffy, but undoubtedly high-tech equipment, Kara was amazed to see a coffee pot and two mugs nestling quietly on a shelf under a rather large first aid locker.

 

“Yes,” she said, resigned. “Show me a cup of coffee and I’ll show you at least two historians attached to it.”

 

Kara couldn’t help but grin.

 

The tiny space smelled of stale people, chemicals, hot electrics and damp carpet, with an underlying smell from the toilet.

 

“Apologies about the smell.” Lena said, linking her fingers together in front of her. “Everyone reckons that us techies take the smell and build the pods around it.” She shrugged, with a slight eyebrow raise – almost daring Kara to question her.

 

“How does it work?”

 

She just looked at Kara.

 

 _OK then._ Kara thought. _Stupid question._

 

“What now?” She asked.

 

“Is there anything else you would like to see?”

 

“Everything.” Kara said, almost breathily.

 

And so, Kara got the ‘other tour’. They went to security where green-clad people were checking weapons and equipment, peering at monitors, running around and shouting at each other.

 

“Is there a problem?” Kara asked.

 

“No. I’m afraid we’re a noisy bunch. I hope you weren’t expecting hallowed halls of learning.”

 

Kara was still smiling like a goon as Lena led them out of Hawking and back towards the entrance.

 

“Captain Lance.” Lena nodded in greeting. Kara was broken out of her reverie as a tall blonde woman stared at her intensely.

 

“Can you shoot? Have you ever fired a weapon? Can you ride? Can you swim? How fit are you?”

 

Kara blinked for a few seconds as both Lena and the Major stared her down.

 

“No. No. Yes. Yes. Enough?” Kara answered, ticking off her answers on her fingers.

 

The Captain paused and looked Kara up and down again. “Could you kill a man?”

 

Kara gulped. Could she? She’s certainly felt angry enough to in the past. She squares her shoulders, if the Captain was trying to psych her out, she damn well wasn’t falling at the final hurdle.

 

“Eventually.”

 

That seemed to be the right answer as the Major grinned and held out a hand. “Sara Lance.”

 

“Kara Danvers.”

 

“So you’re the legacy?” Sara smirks, her eyebrow raised.

 

“It would appear so.” Kara says rocking on her feet slightly, she cast her eyes around looking for her ever illusive sibling.

 

“Welcome to St Deo’s Little Danvers.”

 

“Thanks?”

 

“I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

 

_Well that doesn’t sound good._

 

With that Lena took her on a final tour of the grounds. Kara concluded it was all rather nice, if you  ignored the scorch marks on the grass and the suspiciously pink swans.

 

“What – “ Kara was about to question  the oddity when there was a small bang from the second floor and the windows rattled.

 

“Hold on,” said Lena. “I’m duty officer this week and I want to see If the fire alarms go off.”

 

Kara held her breath in anticipation. They didn’t.

 

“That’s a good thing, right?”

 

Lena sighed, “No, it just means they’ve taken the batteries out again.”

 

Kara grinned as Lena took off at a run.

 

_This really is my sort of place._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Kara's training commences, she has to battle her past. (And try to avoid the mental scarring that is her sister making out with Maggie Sawyer in storerooms) She also has to battle the growing butterflies whenever she has to interact withe a certain Chief Technical Officer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who kudos'd, commented and read the first chapter!  
> I'm going for the longer chapters once a week.

Kara had always loved to people watch, she’d sit with her sketchbook on a bench, under a tree, on the beach and draw. She’d make up extravagant backstories and lose herself for hours at a time.

  
So, as she sat there on Day One, in a classroom with more open brickwork then there was paint, she couldn’t help but wonder what had brought everyone into this room.

  
Only seven trainees had turned up for Day One. Ms Grant told them that there was supposed to have been ten, and on average only 3.5 trainees graduated from each course.

  
_Quite the pep talker is Ms Grant_. Kara thought to herself, doodling on a corner of her paperwork.

  
“You’ll be the .5 then.” A tall man said to her. Kara assumed he was talking about her lack of height – (in comparison to him anyway). Kara dutifully ignored him as he rammed paperwork into his folder, seemingly not noticing most of it falling out of the bottom as he did so.

  
His nametag said Matthews. He had dark eyes and, if Kara squinted, a slightly receding hairline.

  
Next to him stood Ronnie, he was tall and broad shouldered with dark hair and steady blue eyes. He stacked his paperwork neatly and inserted it carefully into his folder, a small and pleasant smile on his face.

  
He was sat next to Caitlin, listening as she spoke, she was quiet and polite. But Kara thought she had a clever and intense face, with a body that seemed to hum with energy, her hands and eyes constantly moving. She seemed to be as highly strung as Ronnie was placid. Kara knew they were going to make a good team.

  
The only other girl, Izzy, like Kara, stood slightly apart, but she looked almost poised for flight, her body language uncertain. Kara guessed she wasn’t sure she wanted to be there.

  
Turns out Kara had been right, she’d remained aloof and left in the first week. Kara didn’t know what happened, one day she was there and the next day she was gone. She’d tried asking Alex what had happened, but there was no point, she wasn’t privy to the trainee programme, and she might as well have been talking to a brick wall where everyone else was concerned.

  
Kara couldn’t even remember hearing her voice.

  
The final two, Brian and Philip, spoke together as they sorted their papers. Brian was a little older than the rest of the trainees, small, skinny and enthusiastic. He looked around the room excitedly, desperately trying to take everything in.

  
The final shock to the system on the first day was the loss of their academic titles. Doctor Kara Danvers, suddenly became Miss Kara Danvers again. She found she quite liked the change, Miss Danvers would have far more fun than Dr Danvers would.

  
Miss Kara Danvers and the rest of the motley crew of trainees were shown to their rooms in the newly built Staff Block. Kara’s was small and shabby and she shared a bathroom with Caitlin.

  
On the bed lay a set of grey jump suits. Which were quite possibly the least flattering garments in the whole of history. (And yes, Kara intended to fully explore this theory) A neat tablet that would fit snugly inside the knee pocket of the jump suit. Heavy-Weather gear, wet-weather gear, grey T-shirts and shorts, socks and boots completed the set.  
Kara unpacked what few belongings she’d brought with her from National City. Sketchbooks, a photo of her and Alex, and another with Eliza, and that was about it. She settled them onto her bedside table, stepped back and sighed.

  
This was her new life. Her new normal.

  
Quickly changing in her jumpsuit, Kara looked in the mirror on the inside of the wardrobe. Quickly she snapped a picture of herself and opened her messaging app.

 **Kara [12:05]**  
Alex. I look like a small, blonde sack.

  
**Alex [12:10]**  
It’s all about tying the top half round your waist.

  
**Kara [12:11]**  
Is that how you get all the girls?

  
Kara waited a minute for her phone to ping again, when it didn’t she laughed at the lack of response from her sister, who was still clearly displaying as being online.

  
She still hadn’t heard from Alex when the time came for her to shuffle back downstairs for their medicals. Kara didn’t try to hide her dislike of doctors because Dr Arias didn’t bother trying to hide her dislike of patients.

  
Kara grinned towards the floor as she thought Dr Arias looked slightly incongruous with her white coat and stethoscope. Kara’s ears tinged pink when she imagined the good doctor in closely fitting black leather, a short hunting crop and a stern expression. Kara nearly choked on her own tongue when the image of the doctor transformed into an image of one Chief Lena Luthor.

  
Kara blanched at the glare she got from Dr Arias. Instead of drawing even more unwanted attention to herself, she continued to fill out the endless paperwork. Her life had been comparatively sickness free so far. Injury-free was a very different ballgame, but the last 12 years had been fairly blameless.

  
Despite that however, Kara was dismayed to be vaccinated for and against everything. Literally everything. On top of that she was encouraged to give blood, which worryingly was deemed to be an investment for the future.

  
As they trooped back to the Hall, moaning and groaning about being human pin cushions she held back a laugh as Mr Matthews rubber his left bum cheek with a grimace and a curse. Kara swiftly stopped grinning when she had to sit down for Dr Jones’ welcome speech on the hard-wooden chairs.

  
“Congratulations to those of you here today. You constitute the best of the candidates interviewed, and only the best of you will complete your training.” He took a moment to make eye contact with them all.

  
“You should be aware that not all of you will make the grade. You have tough times ahead of you. Of course, you may resign whenever you wish. There is no compulsion, you are all volunteers. If you wish to leave, you will be asked again to sign all the confidentiality documents you signed today and, again, the consequences of divulging any information of any kind to anybody will be made very, very clear to you.”

  
He paused again.

  
“Our public image is of a charmingly eccentric historical research organisation, which is of no harm to anyone but itself. This view is particularly prevalent in the town, especially as the echoes of our latest explosion die away.” Dr Jones looked towards a disturbingly large scorch mark on the wall behind Kara’s head.

  
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I implore you to maintain this image please.”

  
Kara stifled a grin into her hand. She’d gone to high school in the sleepy town of Midvale. She knew of all the weird and wonderful stories that St Deo’s had spawned over the years. It had been the source of more urban legends and silly school bets than Kara truly cared to admit.

  
“I hope to get to know you all better over the coming months.” Dr Jones’ eyes crossed slightly, and he said, in the voice of one who has committed something distasteful to memory.

  
“Please remember my door is always open.” And then he was gone, and in his place was Ms Grant, handing out more schedules, organisational schematics, and even more forms for them to complete.

  
Kara leafed through the papers in her folder until she found her timetable. The first lecture started at 0900 tomorrow morning with Chief Luthor, who Kara vividly remembered, followed by a session with the Head of IT, Rhea, who Kara did not remember from her initial orientation.

  
Except for Macho Matthews, Kara rather liked everyone she’d met so far, and Kara blamed that for lulling her into a false sense of security with it came to Rhea. And in all honesty, it was her own fault, she should have kept her mouth shut. But as Alex always said to her, she never learned.

  
Rhea was third in command at St Deo’s after Dr Jones and Chief Luthor, in contrast to everyone else’s easy-going style, Rhea was unpopular, self-important and lacking a sense of humour gene. Alex had warned her in no uncertain terms, to keep her mouth shut, head down and to just get through it.

  
Kara however had all but forgotten about Rhea by the time the next morning rolled around. Chief Luthor, calm and authoritative had her hanging of her every word from the moment she said good morning. Kara suddenly found herself caring about the physics of time travel. (Well. At the very least she cared about listening to the Chief talk about the physics of time travel.)

  
Rhea Daxam (Sorry. _Doctor_ Daxam) however was another matter. She rendered her subject so completely devoid of interest and relevance that Kara could swear she could hear people’s eyes glazing over.

  
Kara herself listened with only half an ear, doodling those piercing green eyes that would not leave her alone. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Rhea trying her best to pose in the sunshine, so everyone could admire the glints of her dark brown hair.

  
Without warning, she wheeled and pounced. “You! Brian! What did I just say?”

  
If he did have any idea of what she’d been boring on about, it had clearly packed its bags and fled the country at the sharpness of her question.

  
Instead, he stared at her; a small furry woodland animal hypnotised by a dark-haired cobra. The silence lengthened.

  
Kara looked up. “You were describing the position of a point as relative. No point can ever be regarded as solid or fixed but must always be viewed in relation to everything else.”

  
More silence. And Kara heard herself swallow loudly.

  
“Is your name Brian.”

  
_I’m back in school again. Oh god I’m back in school._

  
“No,” Kara said, aiming for helpful. “I’m Danvers. I mean, Kara. I’m Kara Danvers.” She could have facepalmed right on the spot, thumped her head on her desk, bid her farewells and flee back to the Amazon. Instead she settled for straightening her shoulders, and hoping for an explosion in R &D.

  
“I suppose you think you’re clever.”

  
More silence.

  
“Answer me.”

  
“I’m sorry, I didn’t think that was a question.”

  
In her head Kara was being drop kicked onto the front lawn, her personal belongings flung out behind her.

  
Mercifully, the clock struck the hour, signalling the end of the lecture and Kara’s second favourite time of the day, lunch.

  
No one moved.

  
After what may have been a lifetime. Rhea stepped backwards.

  
“Dismissed.”

  
So that was her card marked; second period on the first day. _Way to go, Kara._

* * *

 

St Deo’s consisted of a warren of dark corridors and small rooms. Only the Staff Block, Hawking and the kitchens were less than two hundred years old. The walls showed barely a lick of paint below shoulder height. The lovely old panelling was gouged and scraped, and successive generations had carved their names and dates all over it  
What little carpet remained was old and worn, all the furniture sagged, and the curtains were so thin they were see through.

  
And so the training continued, with a slight damp smell and the scent of whatever was being served for lunch hanging in the air. But for Kara everything faded into the background after a while, as did the regular soft explosions from R&D – and that’s something Kara never thought she’d get used to.

  
On one memorable day, three weeks into training, Professor Hunter popped his head round the door and said mildly.

  
“If it’s not too much trouble, may I recommend you evacuate the building right now, please.”

  
Chief Luthor paused from revealing the secrets of the universe and took a deep, exasperated breath.

  
“Right, everyone out. Immediately.”

  
Kara and her fellow trainees had stood and started shuffling towards the door.

  
“No, not the door. Use the windows. Move!”

  
The trainees clambered out the windows and joined the rest of the unit on the South Lawn. Captain Lance’s team, wearing breathing apparatus, threw open windows around the building. Something greenish wafted out. And much to Kara’s delight. They all got the afternoon off.

  
She spied Alex sitting on a low lying branch with Maggie Sawyer, her blue jumpsuit tied around her waist.

  
Kara pulled her phone out from her pocket.

  
**Kara [10:35]**  
I knew that’s how you got the girls.  
Put those guns away before Captain Lance comes for you.

  
Kara put her phone away and sat on the lawn, hiding amongst her fellow trainees. She watched as her sister checked her phone then looked frantically around for wherever she was hiding. Eventually she must have found Kara because her phoned buzzed. 

  
**Alex [10:38]**  
Take a lesson from my book. Chief Luthor at your six.

  
Kara shot upwards, nearly sending poor Brian flying in her haste to look behind her.

  
Sure enough, Chief Luthor sat slightly apart from the rest of them, looking straight at her. Kara felt a blush sweep through her whole body and couldn’t bring herself to look away.

_This is becoming something of a habit, Kara._

  
**Alex [10:45]**  
Kar, this is painful.  
Go talk to her.

  
Kara didn’t. She’d left it too long, and the Chief had been called off to kick start some experimental ventilation system. Instead Kara, had waved slightly, and the Chief had given her what Kara had hoped was a smile and a small salute as she passed.

  
**Alex [11:02]**  
Should’ve gotten those arms out.

  
Instead of responding, Kara flung her arm in the air and gave Alex the finger. She highly doubted Alex was paying attention, but it made Kara feel better all the same.

* * *

 

By the end of the first month, Kara was exhausted. Mentally, physically and socially. Wherever she looked Mike Matthews seemed to be there. They were the only two unpartnered trainees left and as a result they seemed to be stuck together at every opportunity.

  
“What’s the problem with working with me?” He demanded, after Kara had spent the entire day trying to avoid him. “Have I said something? Do I have bad breath? What is it?”  
Kara’s jaw dropped, trying to marshal some words.

“It’s not you – “ she started to say.

  
“Oh. Come on, you’re not going to follow that up with ‘It’s me,’ are you?”

  
“Um. Yes?” She said, slightly taken aback. “But I can lie to you if you prefer.” Kara went to step around him.

  
“No. Wait.” He stepped in her path, and she sighed deeply.

  
“Look. I’m sorry. Just wait a minute. Have I done something? Sometimes, you know, I can be a bit…”

 

“No, I’m – “ Kara struggled for words.

  
Mike smiled and said. “You can be a team player. Yet, you don’t trust people enough to place your safety in their hands. Unless of course, their name is Alex Danvers.”

  
Kara stood, clutching her folder to her chest tightly. Mike took her silence as an invitation to continue.

  
“You don’t like relying on other people and you especially don’t want to rely on me because you don’t know me, you don’t like me and you don’t trust me. At this very moment you’re wishing I’d drop dead so you can vanish back to your room and enjoy doing whatever you do in there very night.”

  
“Well. You’re nearly right. I’m actually trying to vanish to the dining room, but the rest was spot on.”

  
Mike stood silently as her words sank in, and Kara regretted them almost at once. He had been right. She was afraid. Alex had been the only person who had looked out for her. There were dozens more people out there she had trusted to look after her, but had let her down time and time again. Until Alex, Alex she trusted with her life. But even Kara knew, that if she didn’t change her attitude, she wasn’t going to survive here.

He stepped aside to let her pass and the minute she could do so, she didn’t.

  
He was a very clever man was Mike Matthews.

  
“Look, we two are on our own here. I’ve been watching you, Danvers, and you’re as good as I am. And I don’t say that often, because I’ve got a big head as well as a big mouth.”  
Kara nodded slightly in agreement. Big forehead too.

  
“At the moment, we need each other, and I think together we could be pretty good. You want to be the best and so do I, but we can’t do it separately. I’m no asking you to tell me your life secrets, or sleep with me. I just want to work with you. What do you say?”

  
Kara was silent for a few moments. She had once over-ridden her instincts and confided in Ms Marsdin and that had changed her life. Maybe. Just maybe, she could do it again. Looking at his feet, she nodded.

  
He was too clever to push it any further.

  
“OK, I’ll see you tomorrow, at breakfast,” and with that he disappeared.

* * *

  
Once that barrier had come crashing down, everything else seemed to follow.

  
On the whole, the people at St Deo’s were a good crowd, volatile, noisy, eccentric, argumentative, loyal, dedicated and impatient. But overall, they were just an incredible group of people, and with that revelation, Kara began to relax. Alex had introduced her to almost everyone. She found incredible kinship with Winn Schott, from Technical and James Olsen (part-time historian, part-time security aficionado). And with them offering casual words of advice, and plying her with sugary treats, the strange chaos of the first month unravelled into order and routine as she began to get the hang of things.

  
The mornings were mostly devoted to lectures on temporal dynamics, pod procedures, maths (god help her) and the history and structure of St Deo’s.

  
They spent their afternoons in the library, keeping abreast of developments in their specialised areas – Ancient History in Kara’s case – the latest thinking in archaeology and anthropology, together with intensive research on her other two specialities.

  
“What did you choose as your other two specialities?” Asked Mike one Friday lunchtime as she staggered to her room, legs wobbling under the weight of books, papers and boxes of data cubes and sticks. Her tablet was banging in her knee pocket and she was desperate for a coffee and a pee (not necessarily in that order.)

  
“Middle Ages, and the Tudors,” she said, struggling to nudge a door handle with her elbow. “How about you?”

  
He finally got the hint and opened the door for her. “Roman Britain and the Age of Enlightenment.”

  
Kara raised her eyebrows, she was impressed His main area was Early Byzantine, these were all huge subjects, and it was becoming ever clearer he wasn’t just a pretty face, and Kara was glad she took a chance on him.

  
Sure, he wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, he certainly wasn’t Alex’s, but Kara liked him better the more she got to know him. Except for on Fridays.

  
On Fridays, he was a pain in the arse.

  
“It’s Friday,” he said, passing Kara a sheet of paper as they sat down.

  
“Oh, for god’s sake Mike.”

  
“Come on Danvers, it’ll only take a minute.”

  
“Well, why don’t you revise like the rest of us?”

  
“I have many, many better things to do. And this is more of a challenge.”

  
“Not as much of a challenge as the lovely admin clerk you’ve been harassing all week. How’s that working out for you?” Kara rolled her eyes and reminded herself to have a word with poor Eve Tessmacher.

  
“I’m quietly confident.” He said, rolling up his sleeves and stealing her pen.

  
Every Friday afternoon as devoted to a two-hour exam on all the weeks topics. And they had to pass. Failure was not an option, as the famous saying goes. Fail just one weekly test and you were out. No re-sits, no second chances. You were gone. Mike just didn’t seem to grasp that and today he’d opted to write on his arm instead.

  
“Come on, Kara. Read me that bit about temporal and spatial co-ordinates and I’ll buy you a drink.”

  
Kara slumped her shoulders, breathed deeply, and snatched up the paper she’d let fall to the table.

  
“Fine. But you’re buying me donuts as well.”

* * *

 

Mike found her one afternoon in the small classroom on the second floor where she was hiding from the second cross country ‘fun-run’ of he day.

“Have you heard?”

  
“Obviously not,” Kara said, marking her place in the book with her finger, hoping he’d take the hint and go away. “Heard what?”

  
“Philip broke his leg."

 “What?” Kara said, her finger slipping out of her book. “Is he OK?”

  
“Well. No. He’s broken his leg.” Kara picked up her copy of McKisack and moved to swat him with it.

  
“Is he here in Sick Bay, or have they taken him away?”

  
“Oh, they took him into Midvale. It was nearer. Should be back soon.”

  
But he wasn’t. They never saw him again. Rumour had it, he’d gone off to NCU as a post-grad assistant, which left poor Brian very exposed.

  
Kara really felt for him, he wanted this so badly, and he struggled with nearly everything.

  
Academically he was fine, but in terms of everything else – a complete disaster would be putting it politely, and worst of all Rhea, sensing blood in the water, was making his life a living misery. This brought out a side of Mike that Kara didn’t like very much.

  
She asked him to tone it down a bit. But he couldn’t – or wouldn’t – see that his own careless brilliance and effortless achievement was more than a bit insensitive when Brian was struggling to badly.

  
“Why should I?” he demanded. “There’s only three, or at most, four of us going to pass out of training. Me, you, Ronnie, and probably Caitlin. What’s the point?”

  
“Are you suggesting we throw Brian under the bus?”

  
“Why do you care, Kara. You didn’t care much for any of us not to long ago.”

  
“Because he’s one of us, you insensitive jackass.”

  
“Well now who’s suddenly a team player.”

  
Kara rolled her eyes. “You already said that and besides, he’d do it for you.”

  
“He wouldn’t have to.”

  
Kara said nothing, which had turned out to be the best way to deal with him.

* * *

 

  
Kara lay on her back on Alex’s bed, her feet propped up on the wall when Alex stumbled into the room, her door banging into the wall hard enough to knock a picture of her chest of drawers.

  
“Jesus!” Kara yelled, rolling backwards off the bed. What she saw in the doorway, made her slap her hand over her eyes.

  
“Kara?!” Alex jumped backwards, springing apart from whoever, she’d been attached at the lips with. Kara hadn’t looked long enough to find out for herself.

  
“Did you forget?” Kara squeaked, her hand still over her eyes, knocking into various items of furniture as she tried to feel her way out of the awkward situation.

“Oh shit. You had your first simulation.”

  
“Mmm-hmm.”

  
“How did it go? Did you pass?”

 

 

  
“I did really well thank-you.” Kara lied.

  
“Where did you end up?” Alex asked, a lilt in her voice made Kara think she was smirking.

  
“Minoan Crete. Bronze Age.”

  
“Wow,” she said. “Good job Kara.”

  
“Yeah.” Kara dragged out the word. “Sadly, I was aiming for fifteenth-century Constantinople.”

  
“I’m sure you did better than Brian.” A third voice entered the conversation and Kara squeaked in surprise. _Maggie?!_

  
Kara peeled a finger back and seeing that a still flushed Alex and a surprisingly causal Maggie standing about a foot apart, shuffling awkwardly. Content that she wasn’t about to see her sister in a state of undress, she let her hand drop to her side.

  
“Brian?” Kara felt her heart sink. “What happened now?”

  
Maggie sat heavily on the bed, her feet hanging slightly above the floor.

  
“He wanted Tudor England. 1588 to be precise.”

  
Alex sat next to her, trying to fix her hair.

  
“And…”

  
“He ended up right in the middle of the Spanish Armada.”

  
Alex’s brow furrowed. “No. That’s good. 1588 is the Spanish Armada.”

  
“No.” Maggie said. “Right in the middle of the Spanish Armada. About eight miles off the East Coast with the San Lorenzo bearing down on him with all guns blazing as he and his pod disappeared beneath the simulated waves.”

  
Kara was startled when Maggie let out a little giggle. “I saw Lena in Sam’s office ranting about how he accidentally managed to override all the safety protocols and Rhea’s got a face like a buggered badger.”

  
Kara winced. If he’d messed up enough, that even Chief Luthor was at a loss, it didn’t bode well.

  
“I overheard the trainees are planning to ply him with alcohol before he looses the will to live. I um – “ She coughed lightly. “I thought you’d be there with them actually.”

  
Kara was already stuffing her gear into her bag, checking her phone briefly to see a load of missed messages from Mike and Ronnie.

  
“I’ll be on my way then.” Kara made to leave, before she shoved her head back round the door. Alex’s head snapped up when she reappeared.

  
“Oh. And Alex?”

  
“Yeah?”

  
“Make sure to use protection.”

  
Kara fled the room just in time as a dull thud on the door behind her had her cackling her way down towards the bar.

  
And thus started the St Deo’s emergency tutoring society. Kara and Caitlin tried desperately to help where they could. They gave Brian extra sessions, extra revision, and helped him with his notes. Ronnie and a grumbling Mike tried to make him look goo physically. But it became more and more evident that their efforts only served to highlight his deficiencies and he was chopped.

  
They had been finishing one of the sessions on closed time-like curves when the door opened and Rhea marched in. Kara saw Brian go pale. He’d been expecting this, but now. Now the reality was upon him.

  
“Mr Hallem, a moment please.”

  
Whether by accident or design (and Kara was certain it was the latter), the door didn’t close properly behind her and they heard every word.

 

“Hallem, get your gear together. I’m not so sorry to tell you – you’re chopped.”

  
It was brutal. The class gasped. Everyone looked at each other. Chief Luthor, her lecture now lost beyond all recall, got up and stepped out into the corridor.

  
Kara strained her hearing to listen to what was being said, but nothing made it passed the now closed door. Eventually silence fell. Chief Luthor brought Brian back into the classroom. He dropped blindly onto the nearest chair. The Chief placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

“I think we’re finished here today.” And she left the classroom, Kara thought it would be too much to hope for that the Chief was giving Rhea a good kicking in the corridor.

Brian was devastated. Ronnie and Mike rushed him to the bar, muttering something about emergency treatment. Kara and Caitlin did his packing for him and spent an enjoyable half an hour dreaming up a series of elaborate and painful deaths for Rhea.

  
Brian cried when he left, and to Kara’s amazement, so did she.

  
The trainees of St Deo’s didn’t have much time to mourn the loss of Brian. Now they moved into the more physical part of their training. And apparently up until now, they’d had it easy. And every day from now on, Kara would be cursing Alex’s name, for even suggesting she take this job.

  
“Good morning, everyone,” said Captain Lance, trying not to grin too evilly (she failed).

  
“Up to this moment, I’m sure you’ve all enjoyed the cut and thrust of academic debate, but the time has come to embark on the more “hands-on” part of your training.”

  
She rubbed her hands together gleefully.

  
“I see there is just four of you remaining, which gives my section the opportunity to ensure each of you will receive extensive, thorough, and frequent attention. You will find your new timetables in the folders in front of you. Please study them carefully.”

  
Kara fished around in her folder.

  
“The alternatives to non-attendance, for whatever reason – will not be pleasant.” Kara grimaced as Captain Lance, made direct eye contact.

  
“However,” she continued. “Your primary survival strategy will always be running away. Which brings me to the running schedules you will find in Appendix C. Those of you who have hitherto avoided some of our jolly cross-country fun-runs.” She smiled unpleasantly. “Will be sorry.”

  
_Shit_.

  
After that point, Kara got to know the security section rather well. As well as you usually get to know people who have their hands all over you five times a week. Kara suspected there were married couples who have less intimate physical contact that they did.

  
Kara made her acquaintance with Vasquez, Sara’s number two, a really terrifying woman (who was also calm, polite and gentle – almost every time she tried to all but kill Kara with her pinky).

  
“Morning, Kara. Today, I’m going to rob and strangle you. Shall we begin?”

  
She also met Corben, the other unarmed-combat specialist, he was broad, snarling and had incredibly bad teeth. He also had the habit of standing far too close. And Kara had to swallow her revulsion daily. Sessions with Corben always felt too real for Kara, and one day she snapped.

  
He’d gone for the neck, and almost by instinct, Kara reached down, grasped and twisted.

  
“FUCK!” he yelled. Kara saw the blow coming but didn’t quite manage to avoid it. It glanced off the side of her cheek, and she knew she was going to have a shiner come dinner time.

  
Kara didn’t quite have enough time to register that he was closing in again when from behind her she heard Vasquez.

  
“Very good, Miss Danvers.” She nodded politely. “But a more effective response would have been to catch his wrist – like this – and follow through – like this – finishing with the heel of the hand – like this.”

  
They both stood and regarded the groaning heap that Corben had become.

  
“Most instructive,” Kara said. “Thank you, Miss Vasquez.”

  
“An honour and a privilege, Miss Danvers. And remember to keep that thumb untucked.”

  
After that, Kara always tried to make sure she got Vasquez. Corben was the type to hurt the things he feared. Kara had known more than a few in her time. So she kept a discreet distance from him and remained politely aloof, but he sensed her dislike and Kara knew she would pay for it one day.

  
Alex hadn’t taken to kindly to the bruise he’d left on Kara’s face, when she’d called on her sister that evening. She paced up and down in Kara’s tiny room, muttering about all the historical time periods she could dump him in.

  
Kara finally got her to calm down somewhere between the second crusades and a plague outbreak. Kara’s training schedule took a bump that night too when Alex enlisted the help of James to give her some additional fight training.

  
All of it put together meant Kara survived unarmed combat. She even survived First Aid. Fire fighting however, had proven to be slightly more difficult than she’d anticipated.

  
**Sawyer [14:20]**  
Alex, I just saw Little Danvers, she looked like she was crying.  
Ran into the smaller store cupboard behind Hawking.

  
**Alex [14:30]**  
I’ll be there in five.  
Thanks Mags.

Alex had all but annihilated a small gathering of admin clerks in her bid to get to her little sister, they’d scattered the second they saw the red head barrelling towards them. (Crazed historians were barely worth a break in conversation)

  
To Alex’s upmost surprise the Chief stood outside the door to the store room, holding a mug of coffee, and looking incredibly awkward (even by her usual standards)

  
“Lena?” Alex came to a stop, running a hand through her hair, and trying not to look as flustered as she appeared.

  
“Oh Alex, thank god.”

  
“You ok?”

  
“I saw Kara run in there about 10 minutes ago, I didn’t know what to do or say, if she’d even want me to know she was upset.” Lena whispered, leaning away from the door as she spoke.

  
“It was fire-fighting, she completed the lesson and ran.”

  
Alex sighed, she’d been worrying about today since Kara had started her training.

  
“Thanks Lena.”

  
“I, um – “ Lena looked between Alex and the door. “I brought her coffee. It’s got way too much sugar in it, but I know that’s how she likes it. It might help.” Lena all but thrust it into Alex’s hands before she made a hasty retreat down the corridor. Alex saw her pause at the top of the corridor, glance back before disappearing round the corner.

  
Alex placed the mug in her hand on the floor and knocked lightly.

  
“Kar?” There was silence behind the door for a few moments before there was scuffling and a series of bangs as Kara struggled to her feet.

  
“Hang on a sec Alex, I’m just looking for – “ there was a pause. “A – a – a. Oh! Screwdriver.”

  
Alex shook her head.

  
When the door flung open, Kara stood there brandishing a screwdriver in her face. Along with the red, puffy eyes, slightly running nose, and stuttering breaths it had the effect of making Kara look more deranged than usual.

  
Alex said nothing, she didn’t need too. Instead she pulled Kara into her arms and held her tightly. It didn’t take long for Kara to relax into her, the screwdriver dropping to the floor as she clutched Alex’s jumpsuit.

  
They stood in that corridor for what felt like the longest time. Kara’s crying mostly silently.

  
“I’m sorry Alex.”

  
“None of that. I should have warned you.”

  
“There wasn’t even that much fire ‘Lex. It was just there, and then I wasn’t.” Kara remembered feeling the heat licking at her hands, the smoke, the panic in her father’s voice.  
Alex felt her sister shudder in her arms.

  
“It’s ok. We can work on this. You can talk to M’gann, She’s really good with this sort of thing. She’s helped me through a lot before.”

  
Kara pulled back and looked at Alex. There had been a lot of trauma alluded to at St Deo’s, a lot of unfortunate situations and difficult extractions that made her wonder, just what her sister had been through up to this point.

  
“I’ve only got a month before the final exam.”

  
“You’ve got this Kar. We’ve got this.”

  
“Thank-you.” Kara tried to pour all of her gratitude into those two words.

  
“Anytime you dummy.”

  
Kara laughed into her shoulder.

  
“Oh. And one Chief Technical Officer was rather concerned about you.” Alex pulled back in time to see the blush spread across Kara’s cheeks, right the way to the tops of her ears.

  
“She didn’t see me crying like an absolute baby did she?”

  
“No comment. But.” Alex reached down for the coffee at their feet. “She did make you this sugary monstrosity.”

  
Kara’s eyes lit up.

  
“Don’t let Sam see you making that by the way. She’ll get Mrs Mack to restrict your sugar intake. And I’ve seen you without your morning donut.” Alex pretends to shiver. “A truly horrifying experience.”

 

Kara’s face twists into one of abject horror, looking into middle distance she whispers. “She must never know.”

* * *

 

Not long after that, Kara’s Tuesday and Thursday evening’s were taken up with some not so casual therapy. M’gann worked alongside Dr Arias and dealt with all things psychological. Kara also found it highly amusing that she was also in charge of running the bar.

  
It wasn’t uncommon for Tuesday and Thursday evenings after that to be spent with Alex crying over tubs of ice cream and Disney movies. It also wasn’t uncommon for Kara to find rogue mugs of sugary coffee at her terminal in the library, or outside her pod after simulations. Each one making her stomach flip and her grin a little bit wilder.

  
Overall she was beginning to pretty pleased with herself until Captain Lance knocked the smirk right off her face with Outdoor Survival.

  
Apparently, they would all be driven to the arse end of nowhere on a regular basis and left for two days to die of starvation and exposure.

  
Kara hated the cold and the wet, and when she discovered it would be part of the final examination in September, she started to make plans. Not to cheat per se (because that would be – wrong) But, as Kara put it, she was dealing with the situation on her own terms.

  
So with that on the backburner, Kara threw herself into the increased simulation training. It got to the point when they were in Hawking morning, noon and night. She loved those sessions, walking down the hangar, laughing with Caitlin or Mike. She loved entering the pod and smelling that special pod smell. She loved checking the lockers and stowing her gear, settling herself into the lumpy chair, beginning the start-up procedures, laying in her precalculated coordinates.

Yes, she loved dealing with the hair-raising scenarios followed. But mostly, mostly she loved that everything was being done under Chief Luthor’s watchful eye.

  
The sessions were always so real to Kara, and she was always surprised to open the door and find herself still in Hawking.

  
They simulated missions where everything went according to plan, but only a couple of times, because that almost never happened. So mostly, mostly they simulated missions where they were attacked by hostile contemporaries.

  
That apparently happened a lot.

  
They also simulated missions where they became ill with something particularly unpleasant.

  
That happened a lot too.

  
There were the simulations where the pod caught fire.

  
Apparently not _quite_ as common.

  
And finally, everyone’s favourite. Missions where they all died.

  
These were usually scheduled for a Friday morning, so everyone was finished and tucked up in a simulated body bag in time for the afternoon exams.

  
Nothing good ever happened on a Friday morning. Enough could go wrong without tempting Fate. Or History. And for non-trainees, Friday afternoons were usually reserved for the weekly bloodbath.

  
(Or friendly football match, as it was officially known)

  
The ‘bloodbath’ was held between the technical and security sections – an event that often resulted in only marginally few fatalities and ill-will than Gettysburg.

  
The final exams loomed over Kara like a never ending shadow. Alex had been a constant source of Pep Talks. (When she wasn’t stealing coy moments with Maggie in closets all over St Deo’s that was.)

  
Kara was working hard, harder than she ever had before. Everyone was, unless their name was Mike Matthews, in which case, they barely did any work at all.

  
The first exam was Weapons Expertise on the Monday. In which she thanked all the gods for being assigned Vasquez as her examiner, and not only did she hold her off, but she managed to land a few good blows as well. In fact, the wink Vasquez gave her at the end had Kara glowing her way through the corridors for the rest of the day. So much so that Alex had questioned whether Hunter had inadvertently used her in one of his experiments.

  
Archery was a doddle, as was target shooting. Captain Lance scribbled away with great enthusiasm and Kara hoped it was a good sign. They gave her a pile of miscellaneous junk and fifteen minutes to fashion a weapon. In the absence of any combustible materials, Kara fashioned a slingshot that David himself would have been proud off and when asked to test fire, she took out the small window in the gent’s bathroom on the second floor. Kara could hear the frantic note taking from metres away. Again, she hoped this was a good sign (and not someone writing up a bill for repair).

  
The final fire fighting exam saw Kara freeze up momentarily as the flames danced. But she used all of the techniques M’gann had placed in her arsenal and took it step by mechanical step as she’d practiced. (Alex had been setting fires on the South Lawn for Kara to practice on, much to the dismay of the security section)

  
Electrical, Chemical – you name it, Kara doused it. She prayed there was more good scribbling for Fire Fighting.

  
Wednesday was Self Defence. She made no headway at all with Corben as he none to gently chucked her around all over the place, grinning his stupid head off the entire time.

The time had come to channel her inner jackass (Also known as the Alex Danvers method). She waited until a particularly heavy fall, then placed a hand on her lower stomach, curled into a ball and uttered, “Oh god, the baby!”

  
Corben stopped dead, mouth agape, saying “What…?” And Kara hacked her legs out from underneath him, leaping to her feet, ran across his chest, and rang the bell, which was the whole point of the exam.

  
There was no mad scribbling at all. Captain Lance threw down her clipboard and walked off.

  
“Oh dear,” Kara said to a watching Vasquez.

  
“No, you’re OK. She’s gone round the corner where no one can see her laugh.”

  
Kara felt quite pleased with herself, and took great joy in the high fives she received from the everyone she passed in the corridor. Word clearly travelled faster than the speed of light in St Deo’s.

  
Again, her glee was short lived. When Thursday’s Field Medic exam rolled round, Kara nearly dropped out on the spot.

  
At first, it was a theory test; plague, cholera and typhoid symptoms (all the fun stuff.) How to treat simple fractures, shock, resuscitation, no problems at all. Then in the afternoon, they had to go out and find themselves a body. A number of volunteers lay scattered around the place and they had to find one.

  
They had a label tied to one arm with a list of symptoms and injuries so they could diagnose and treat. With Kara’s usual luck, she fell over Rhea.

 

They didn’t like each other. Kara had never forgiven her for Brian and Rhea just definitely didn’t like Kara.

  
Rhea was laying stretched against the outer wall near the entrance to Hawking, scarfed up to the eyebrows against the cold and reading Computing for Geniuses (or so Kara thought). Her label said she’d been in an explosion. Dear old Mrs Kent from R&D looked on as Kara questioned Rhea closely and got to work.

  
Severe head trauma, broken limbs, burns; Kara worked away, bandaging, improvising splints and doing a good job. Mrs Kent scribbled away again, and Kara sat back on her heels, satisfied.

  
And then the ever spiteful woman said, “Oh, by the way, I’m on fire!”

  
Kara’s heart stopped. She’d failed.

  
She checked her label.

  
“No you’re not.”

  
“Yes, I am.”

  
“You didn’t say.”

  
“You didn’t ask.”

  
Kara took a deep breath. Rhea was smirking. Everyone knew this was their examination. Everyone was cutting the trainees some slack. Vasquez fell over more times than he had to, Lance rounding people’s scores up instead of down. Kara bet Professor Hunter had held up his broken limbs for bandaging without even being asked.

  
And Kara had gotten the witch of St Deo’s and she’d screwed her.

  
Kara said, “Oh dear,” deliberately omitting the ‘ma’am’ that Rhea so coveted. “This is an emergency. I must deal with it at once.”

  
Kara stepped away to the outside tap, filled a bucket with ice-cold water, and emptied it all over her.

  
She screamed and shot to her feet, soaked to the skin. That was excellent. Kara didn’t dare look at Mrs Kent.

  
Rhea had to drop her way past a small crowd of interested techies who had turned up to see who was screaming. Someone sniggered, Kara swore it wasn’t her. In fact she was more than certain it was Winn, who was badly disguising a laugh behind a horrifyingly dramatic cough.

“You might want to get that cough checked dear.” Mrs Kent said, patting Winn on the shoulder as she passed. Kara could’ve sworn she’d seen a wink.

  
Kara waited all evening to hear she’d failed.

  
“Don’t panic,” said Mike. “Why would they fail you for something so trivial.”

  
“I’m with him,” James said. “They’ve invested hugely in you guys. And it’s not as if you actually set her on fire, which is what anyone else would have done.”

  
“Yeah, just don’t expect any gratitude from the rest of the human race.” Winn muttered into his beer.

  
And with that, Thursday rolled into Friday, and with it the dreaded Outdoor Survival. It was appropriately scheduled so the torture would be carried out over the weekend. It was Early November by this point, raining almost constantly and bitterly cold.

  
“I’m going to die Alex.” Alex rolled her eyes for the umpteenth time. They’d had this conversation more times than she ever cared to remember.

  
“You’ll be fine. I survived. James survived. Admittedly Winn probably wouldn’t survive.” She glanced at the bewildered techie.

  
“I take great offense at that.” He said with a grumble.

  
But what Alex and the boys didn’t know was that Kara had been carefully making provisions for this day since they first distributed the exam schedule.

  
The exam would consist of the trainees being dropped off at separate locations and they had to make their way back to St Deo’s by Sunday lunchtime.

  
Kara was sure this wasn’t going to be a problem for her, because she planned not to leave the building in the first place.

  
Instead, she borrowed a black jumpsuit. After all, people see what they expect to see. Take away the greys and Kara was no longer a trainee, she’d borrowed one of Winn’s baseball caps to hide her hair, grabbed a clipboard and then looked as if she knew what she was doing.

  
_Totally going to get away with this._

  
The next step was to avoid getting on the transport. She skulked into admin, brought up the lists, deleted her name, and re-printed. Hopefully, each driver would think she was with one of the others. After all, they weren’t the only ones to have this inflicted upon them. Qualified historians had to complete a session every eighteen months and Security once a year. Kara’s motto since she moved in with the Danvers had been to always get lost in the crowd – this was one of those times.

  
Whenever anyone asked her what transport she was on, she would wave her arm vaguely and tell them “The other one.”

  
So far, so good. Now she needed somewhere to hide for two and a half days. Kara had planned to use the time for studying for the final Pod exam, which would follow immediately after the torture of Outdoor Survival.

  
For weeks leading up to the exam she’d been poking round in the odd corners of St Deo’s. She planned to avoid the main building, staff block and more obvious public areas.

Thankfully she’d found the perfect spot after her breakdown following her first Fire Safety lesson.

  
The store room itself was badly lit, cluttered and dusty with disuse, it also had a large, empty area at the back which was cordoned off by yellow and black tape.

  
A notice on the wall said:

  
NO STORAGE IN THIS AREA.  
L. LUTHOR (CTO)

  
Once she’d decided this was to be her spot, she started stockpiling. Sleeping bag, water, chocolate (vital for any survival situation), torch, batteries, revision notes and a backpack.

  
So long as she kept quiet, she should be OK.

  
I’ll be revising. It’s practically my duty to cheat. Kara thought to herself.

  
“How are you planning to survive?” Kara asked Caitlin one morning over breakfast. In between shovelling bacon and eggs into her mouth like food was going out of fashion.

  
“I’m sure I’ll work out a way.” Caitlin responded vaguely. Not meeting Kara’s eyes.

  
Both Ronnie and Mike were also strangely evasive about their own plans. Kara suspected they all had their own contingencies stashed away around the countryside. She could only hope they weren’t planning something similar. Kara would be more than a bit screwed if no one at all got on the transports.

  
On the day of the exam Kara trotted into the dining hall, decked out in woodland camo gear.

  
“If you eat anymore you won’t get out the front door.” Alex scoffed, scooting onto the bench opposite Kara, her own plate filled with toast and an impressive array of jams.

  
“I’m eating to survive Alex.”

  
Maggie looked vaguely disgusted at the spray of crumbs, but had the good grace not to mention it.

  
“You’ll be fine. Lucy only got minor frostbite on our last recertification.” Alex said with a shrug.

  
Winn had to reach over and close Kara’s jaw for her.

  
After all the good lucks and not so gentle mocking, Kara slipped quietly away. Years of bunking off at school and disappearing from various foster homes had finally paid off.  
Once she’d made it to the toilets, she stood on the cistern, bundled her camo up into the false ceiling and pulled out the blacks, a cap and a clipboard.

  
She slowly wandered back down the long corridor, consulting her clipboard, occasionally peering at a fire alarm point, and making a tick on her paperwork.

  
Kara felt horribly vulnerable, but no one so much as looked at her. No one came racing down the corridor shouting her name, so presumably she hadn’t been missed at the transports either.

  
Eventually she strolled into the storage room and closed the door behind her. She retrieved her backpack and stuff from behind the cobwebbed tins of Battleship Grey at the back. And finally, she made her way to the empty corner.

  
And a door opened in the middle of nowhere and Chief Luthor stepped out.

  
It would be hard to say who was the most gobsmacked. Kara stood rooted to the spot, waiting for her to realise where Kara should be and compare it to where she actually was. And fire her on the spot.

  
It didn’t happen. Long seconds tick by with nothing happening, and it slowly dawned on Kara that Chief Luthor looked as guilty as Kara felt.

  
And where did you come from? Kara thought. She’d just appeared. There was nothing. Then there was an open door. Then she stepped out. And here she was. In the middle of the room.

  
They stared at each other.

  
“Miss Danvers,” she managed, eventually, ignoring the fact that Kara appeared to be disguised as one of the unit’s IT officers.

  
“Good morning, Chief.” Kara said politely.

  
_What now?_

  
Whilst the two women were grappling with this social conundrum, they heard sudden voices in the corridor outside. Panic gripped Kara and she stared wildly around for somewhere to hide

  
Chief Luthor grabbed her arm.

  
“Come with me.”

  
Kara’s brain helpfully added _‘if you want to live’._

  
“Door!” Chief Luthor said.

  
Four strides and they were both inside a pod. Kara could tell that much with her eyes shut. The smell was unmistakeable. She looked around. This one was small. Maybe a single seater.

  
The layout was different, with the console on the left-hand wall and the colour.

 _Boring beige rather than grim grey. Interesting choice_.

 

Everything was different, not least the fact that it appeared, from the outside, to be invisible.

  
Kara couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t get her into even deeper trouble, so she shut up. She suspected something similar flitted through her mind as well, and she was a woman of few words as it was.

  
Eons passed. Kara’s backpack slid off her shoulder and hit the floor with a thump that made both of them jump. At last, the chief said. “What are you doing here?”

  
“Um – looking for somewhere quiet to do my pod revision,” she pulled out a folder as though it would convince her.

  
“Shouldn’t you be …?”

  
Kara cut her off with a gesture and a complicated, ambigious noise that she intended to convey – _if you don’t ask then I won’t have to lie and you won’t have to take any action we might both regret, because, let’s face it, I’m not the only one up to no good here._

  
Kara took a mental deep breath.

  
They both paused to contemplate the massive rule-breaking they were participating in.

  
“Would you like some coffee?”

  
“Oh, yes please.” Kara said.

  
They’re at St Deo’s. If hitting something doesn’t cure the problem, then drinking coffee will.

  
There was only the one seat, so they sat on the floor and sipped in silence.

  
“You picked the wrong day to – study – in the store room.” Chief Luthor raised a perfect eyebrow.

  
“It’s inventory day and people are going to be in and out all day, counting things.”

  
_Bloody typical._

  
Chief Luthor sighed. “You can stay here.”

  
Kara looked around.

  
“In my pod.”

  
Kara looked at her.

  
“This is my pod. My own pod. I keep it here out of the way.”

  
Kara carried on looking at her.

  
“It’s experimental.”

  
“Ah. That accounts for some of its more unique features.”

  
“Yeah.” Chief Luthor said with a hint of an accent. “I use it as a prototype. If things test OK then I incorporate them into the mainstream pods.”

  
Kara nodded.

  
“Only it’s not exactly common knowledge”

  
Kara nodded again.

  
She turned and looked at Kara directly. “Is this likely to be a problem for you?”

  
“Nope.” Kara popped the P.

  
“J’onn mentioned this.”

  
“J’onn?”

  
“Dr Jones. The Boss. He said he found it one of the more unusual things about you.”

  
Kara’s brow furrowed, then she shrugged in agreement.

  
“He said the more extraordinary things he told you, the quieter and calmer you became. And here you are doing it again.”

  
“I’m sitting in an invisible room! What else can I say.”

  
“Only from the outside and invisible is not a good word.”

  
“Don’t tell me we’re -cloaked-.” Kara hooked her fingers in some air quotes.

  
“No. It’s camouflage. Simply a combination of high def cameras and a sophisticated computer putting it all together and projecting the images back again. It works well against simple backgrounds like plain walls, less so against complex subjects – “ she waved her hand around as she looked for an example. “A leafy jungle.”

  
Kara nodded, and looked around. A small phone like object resting on a stand caught my eye. “You have a telephone?”

  
“Funny you should pick up on that.” She said picking it up and twirling it around in her fingers. “It’s a remote control. You might have one yourself one day.”

  
Kara nodded again, she had no idea what Chief Luthor was saying.

  
“I’ll leave you to get on with your… revision. You’ll probably find around six thirty on Sunday morning will be the best time to finish. Take a walk in the woods, come back in through the East Gate.”

  
“OK. Thanks.” Kara nodded, a grin spreading across her face.

  
“Leave the place tidy.” She said, and paused as if to say something else and then she left.

  
Kara made herself comfortable in her chair and pulled out her pod files.

  
Chief Luthor had been right about the inventory. People wandered in and out all day, including Eve Tessmacher and another admin clerk Kara hadn’t met yet. But they did have a very interesting conversation.

  
They were counting tins of Sunshine Yellow, which is apparently, the colour of the cross-hatching outside the hangar, when the Chief stuck her head round the door, and without even a glance in Kara’s direction, asked them to count Lamp Black as well.

  
After she’d gone, they put down their paperwork and prepared for a good gossip.

  
“Is she sleeping with Rhea?”

  
Kara nearly dropped her folder in shock. Instead she leant forwards, turned up the external audio and stared at the screen.

  
“No, that never really got off the ground. Although not for want of trying Rhea’s part. She did everything she could at the last Christmas party.” Eve laughed.

  
“It was tragic. But incredibly fun to watch.”

  
“What did the Chief do?”

  
“Nothing. She was polite but distant. You know how she can be.”

  
“Yeah, and I know how Rhea can be as well. Don’t tell me she’s given up.”

  
“She might as well. The word on the street now is that she’s very interested in someone else.”

 

“Oh? Who’s that then?”

  
“Can’t you guess?”

  
“What? Her? You’re having me on?!”

  
_Her? Who’s her? Why does everyone always know what’s going on but me?_ Kara thought frantically. She didn’t know why she cared. But suddenly she was incredibly invested in the story.

  
_Come on, ladies! Clarify for the confused eavesdropper._

  
“Well, she’ll lead her on a merry dance.”

  
“Already is by the sound of it.”

  
_Why am I so upset?_

  
“No wonder Rhea’s so pissed.”

  
“Yeah, great isn’t it?”

  
“And they say,” she continued, “that cocky git Mike is sniffing around as well.”

  
Kara watched as Eve spoke. So Eve is for sure not into Mike. _Interesting. Interesting._

  
Then Kara’s brain caught up. _Wait? If Mike’s not sniffing around Eve. Then who?_

  
“Did you hear she chucked a bucket of water over Rhea the other day? Apparently, they all nearly wet themselves trying not to laugh and old Kent doubled her score on the spot.”

  
**_WHAT_**. Kara’s brain came to a rearing halt.

Then the voice that’s haunted most of her major life decisions to this point decided to have its say.

  
“She’s not interested in you. Who would be?” But Kara ignored it in favour of the little warm glow that spread from the tips of her toes to the hair on the top of her head.

  
After that, nothing else seemed to matter. She had forty-eight hours of solid revision time in this little oasis of peace. She un-jangled her nerves, gave her aching body a rest, made sandwiches, ate chocolate (An entire weeks worth of supply) slept and revised like her life depended on it.

  
Then she spent some time (at least 73.4% of the time) thinking about what she’d overheard. She did try to concentrate on operations, procedures and protocols, but snippets of that conversation kept intruding, and occasionally, she’d find herself grinning to herself.

  
She eased herself out of the building at six thirty on Sunday. The Chief had been right, it was a great time. Hardly anyone was up and paying attention at that time on a Sunday morning. The night watch, in their last hour of duty would be thinking of breakfast and writing their logs and everyone else was still in bed.

  
Kara changed back into camo and strode confidently towards the woods. The rain bucketed it down; confirming all of Kara’s decisions to give the whole exposure and hardship thing a miss.

  
It was three long miles to the East Gate. By the time she hacked her way through wet woodland, tripped over roots, fallen into boggy patches, had her face whipped by branches and been splattered with mud, it looked as if she’d been out there for a fortnight. She was soaked to the skin. She got lost twice. (As Alex would profess she’s truly terrible with directions) And eventually she stumbled through the East gate (More by accident than any orienteering expertise – but she’ll take the win)

  
The cluster of people at the gate laughed at her but gave her a steaming cup of hot coffee when she signed in. They must have rang ahead because Captain Lance was waiting for her.

  
Kara knew she was suspicious, but she looked so authentic; wet, muddy, bleeding, limping (and she’d only gone three miles).

  
“How did you get back?”

  
_I flew here. On a bus._ “Found a stream and followed it down.”

  
“How did you find the stream?”

  
“Fell in it.” Kara shrugged, ringing out her hair as if to prove the point.

  
“How did you get in?”

  
“East Gate.”

  
“And how did you find the East Gate?”

  
“I was – um – looking for the South Gate.”

  
“Where were you dropped?”

  
“Some god-forsaken, windswept, rain-lashed, barren landscape, not previously known to man – or woman”

  
“I can’t seem to find your name on the transport list.”

  
“Oh golly. Does that mean I didn’t have to do this?”

  
Kara crossed her toes in her soggy, soggy socks.

  
There was a long, long pause. She returned her stare with a look of blinding innocence and battered mud-clogged eyelashes at her.

  
She’d cheated. Captain Lance knew she’d cheated, but Kara stood before her, authentically bedraggled and there wasn’t a lot she could do.

  
“Go and get cleaned up and get something to eat.”

  
“Yes, Captain.”

  
_Yay!_

  
It was after Kara was squeaky clean, her shared bathroom looking like a monster made of clay had had a dance party, and she was piling a mountain of pizza slices onto a plate that Mike rocked up behind her.

  
“How’d you do Mike?”

  
“I paid a guy to follow the transport at a discreet distance. He picked me up and I spent the weekend clubbing in National City.”

  
“What? Baby seals?”

  
“Hilarious.”

  
“What about Ronnie and Caitlin?”

  
“They planned ahead, planted two mobiles in the transports, used the GPS, rang for a taxi, booked a small hotel and fucked each other senseless for forty-eight hours.”

  
_And I spent forty-eight hours living off sandwiches and sleeping on the floor. Alone._

  
“Does anyone actually take this exam?”

  
“Not in living memory. That’s the whole point. It’s an initiative test. They know we cheap, it’s expected. The trick is to look them in the eye and lie as hard as you can.”

  
She was going to kill Alex.

 

* * *

 

  
Kara was still somewhat aggrieved over the living on sandwiches thing, but the three day pod exam was a triumph, as were Thursday’s simulations. The end was in sight, which was just as well, because Kara was absolutely knackered. And it would be so in style for her to tall at the last hurdle.

  
Only the sims weren’t the last hurdle. The last hurdle was on Tuesday. Tuesday was the real deal.

And oh how she would fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanks to you all for reading / getting this far!  
> This is the longest thing I have ever posted!  
> As always let me know what you think.  
> I'm aiming to keep a chapter ahead each time I post, and I'm hoping to post on Sunday evenings!  
> I might possibly do some perspective shifts either as a second story once this one is complete or alternate the chapters (I'm leaning towards a second story instead as going over the same events consecutively might get a tad dull)
> 
> You can catch me on Tumblr at super-super-gay


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara's first solo venture into History, doesn't go -quite- according to plan.

Tuesday was the day when they finally found out whether they had what it took. No more hiding behind the theory or lectures or the simulations. No more hiding from their own fears. This was it.

_Finally_.

Kara kicked off the covers and bounded out of bed. (Not something that happened very often) After a quick shower she dressed (for what she hoped was the last time) in her now-despised greys. Skipping down the corridor, she banged on Mike’s door.

“Come on! Today’s the day!”

She heard his door open behind her, but didn’t stop, instead she danced round the corner, straight into Chief Luthor. It was like hitting a warm wall.

“Sorry, Chief.” Kara stepped backwards. “Did I hurt you?”

She smiled patiently. “No, Miss Danvers. I seem to have survived. Today’s your big day, then?”

“You betcha, Chief. Shrewsbury, circa 1350. Can you believe it?”

“I seem to remember you mentioning it almost incessantly last week.” Lena’s smiled turned fond. “You’ve got number eight by the way.”

“Great!” Kara said with a bounce. “Eight is my lucky number.” She grinned like an idiot and hopped from foot to foot in her impatience to get going.

“Go, Miss Danvers, before you break something.”

“Bye, Chief!” And she was gone.

Kara helped herself to eggs, bacon, hash browns, and grapefruit juice. The others all did the same, although Caitlin just pushed hers around the plate. Kara thought she looked a little pale, and when Kara spoke to her she only nodded.

Mike, naturally, was more than full of it.

As a foursome, they set off to Wardrobe. Cisco was waiting for them, holding up four bags, shaking them tantalisingly.

Kara jumped a little, resisted the urge to clap and squeal and took her bag. Inside was a thick, coarse, brown woollen dress, that hung by her ankles.

“Forget sweeping around with a long dress,” Cisco said as he supervised her transformation. “This is not the movies. Nothing picks up dust, dirt, wet, shit, and the _occasional_ , dead dog as much as a sweeping hemline.”

Kara grimaced, and bunched her hands in the material, hiking it up a little more at her hips.

“Trust me Kara. You’ll thank me when you’re tip-toeing through the delights of a medieval street.”

Kara almost thanked him for not mentioning that she would occasionally have to run for her life, and having semi-free ankles would likely save her life.

She spun round quickly, watching herself in the full length mirror. The look they were aiming for was a young, respectable housewife, maybe a journeyman’s wife or an upper servant to a prosperous household. A young, unmarried and seemingly unprotected girl wondering around the streets would just be asking for trouble.

Underneath, Kara wore several linen shifts, and underneath those, a sports bra and modern thermal underwear. There was no way she was wondering around medieval Shrewsbury in early spring with no drawers on.

And as Cisco had so cheerfully said; “If things go bad, wearing modern underwear is going to be the least of your problems.”

Kara was also given a linin coif to show her married status, a pair of stout leather shoes, a dark green cloak. And a basket. Historian 101 – Always have something to carry, it helps a historian blend with the contemporaries. (Or so Kara’s answer in her first Friday exam would have her believe)

“And here’s your matches, compass, water purification tablets.” Cisco pointed to each of the hidden pockets sewn into the layers and layers of clothing.

“Please, please, please. Use the tablets, Doctor Arias has given very clear instructions on avoiding water-borne diseases!”

Kara patted the pocket, hoping to offer reassurance. Back beyond the curtain she saw the other three waiting. Mike was all geared up for his trip to Hoboken, New Jersey for the first ever recorded game of baseball. Caitlin was prepped for a trip to Restoration London and Ronnie to New England circa 1676. All quiet and unspectacular jumps since they were for the first, and only time, going solo. Every other jump always consisted of two historians, or historian and security.

Cisco lined them all up and checked them over for watches, jewellery and rogue tattoos before despatching them to Hawking.

The corridors were lined with what felt like the entire population of St Deo’s. Everyone knew where they were going and why. Best wishes and good luck calls followed them down the corridor. Kara didn’t know how the others felt, but she felt like her insides were somersaulting and she was torn between overwhelming fear and excitement.

As they entered the noisy hanger, everyone scattered towards their respective pods. Number 8 was at the far end of the hangar. On the galley overlooking the hangar Alex leant on the railings, grinning from ear to ear.

“Who’s that big bad soon-to-be-historian?” She yelled, whistling loudly.

“Caitlin?” Kara yelled back. Alex just chuckled and waved her on. Waiting at the door to number 8 was Chief Luthor. The Chief stepped to the side and waved her hand over the door. Inviting Kara to do her thing.

“Door.” Kara said, with confidence she wasn’t sure she felt. The door swung open and she climbed in and looked around. As always, the console sat to the right of the door, and she could see that the co-ordinates were already laid in.

“All done,” said the Chief, who’d followed her in. “It’s all on automatic for this jump. There’s nothing really for you to do but sit back and enjoy the ride.” She pulled out her tablet from her knee pocket and began punching in keys. “Want to do your pre-flight checks?”

Kara nodded nervously and began checking everything over. She opened the locker door and was surprised to find it fully stocked with rations; lots and lots of rations.

“I know I eat a lot Chief, but this seems excessive.”

“If it was for you Miss Danvers, I can assure you there would be at least 50% more sugar.” The Chief smirked. “But we’re turning this Pod around as soon as you come back, so it’s ready loaded for fourteen days.”

Kara nodded appreciatively.

“Can I trust that it’s still going to be there when you come back?”

“I can make no such promises.” Kara grinned. The Chief rolled her eyes playfully.

“Well, the loo is working, try to keep it that way. So is the incinerator. The tanks are full and the cells are charged.” She patted the walls. “This is going to be the easiest jump you’ll ever have and you have to do absolutely nothing.”

The Chief looked at her as if to say, even a Historian can’t mess this up.

“How long are you going for?”

“Umm. Six hours. Never been to Shrewsbury before so it’ll be nice to have a wander round. They won’t let me stay any longer than that.”

The Chief smiled. “Six hours is more than long enough for your first trip.”

“Am I going in real time?”

“Nope. Six hours for you and thirty minutes for me. After I’ve seen you off, I’m going to make myself a cup of coffee and wait over there, likely with Alex pacing her way through the floor, and wait for you to come back. You’ll be back before I’ve finished.”

“If you have a cup of coffee ready for me, I’ll tell you all about it?”

The Chief looked at Kara with her head on one side. “All right then.”

Kara suddenly felt embarrassed. “Oh, no, it’s OK, Chief. I just thought – you know – of course, it’s nothing special for you, is it?”

“I all but demand a blow-by-blow account from you in return for a cup of coffee.” The two smiled at each other for slightly too long before the Chief broke the silence. “Now are you all set?”

Kara put the basket on the second chair and settled into the left-hand seat, checking the read outs as she went. Finally she took a deep breath, patted both her hands on her thighs, turned and grinned at the Chief. “Yes!”

“In that case. Good luck Miss Danvers.”

After she had gone, Kara said (not without a bit of a wobble) “Computer, close the door.”

The door shut without so much as a sound.

_So far, so good._

Through the external screen, Kara saw Pod Three disappear.

“Computer, confirm co-ordinates are laid in.”

“Confirmed.”

Kara took another deep breath. “Initiate jump.”

“Jump initiated.”

There were no flashing lights, no calendars with the dates peeling away and (sadly) no dramatic music. The world went white for a few moments before it cleared.

Kara peered eagerly at what had to be the most un-Shrewsbury like landscape on the planet.

Green grass flowed as far as the eye could see. On the horizon, huge snow-capped mountains jutted up into a clear blue sky. Kara didn’t know where or when she was, but it sure as hell wasn’t Shrewsbury.

_Probably not in Kansas, either_.

“Shit!”

Frantically she switched on the other cameras, in case Shrewsbury was hiding around the corner. But there was no corner. No Shrewsbury. No nothing. Only waving grass.

Kara sat for a bit. Her mouth agape, her brain firing at what felt like a hundred miles an hour. After a few minutes she found her voice. “Computer; confirm date and location.”

“Shrewsbury, England. 1350.”

“Computer; confirm time of jump remaining.”

“Five hours, fifty-seven minutes.”

_Given the gigantic Shrewsbury-shaped gap in the landscape_ , _I’m gonna say NOPE._

With that, Kara’s plans for the day had well and truly been thrown in the trash.

_I should probably just go home._

Kara spun around in her chair.

_Or…_

“Door.”

The door opened, and cold, fresh air flooded in. Kara stood slowly, standing in the doorway. She put one hand on each side of the door jamb and cautiously peered out.

In front of her, the grass rippled and shimmered in the breeze. The sun beat down from a cloudless blue sky. And, apart from the hissing wind, it was utterly silent.

Kara turned back into the pod, paused, and then looked to the door again, considering her options.

She could demand emergency extraction from the computer, which would whirl her back to St Deo’s at nose-bleeding speed almost before the words had been uttered. It would be quick and definitely _not_ painless. (Which is why it’s used for _emergencies_ only).

And Kara certainly wasn’t where she should be, and it would be the cautious and sensible thing to do.

But. She was a historian _and_ a Danvers, cautious and sensible were things that happened to other people. As far as she could tell, she wasn’t in any danger; the worst thing that could happen would be an afternoon of mild tedium.

People usually only shrieked for emergency extraction when they were _actually_ on fire. Or bleeding. Or god forbid, both.

_What would I even say?_

_What emergency could I declare?_

“Ooops, I’m not in Shrewsbury. Doesn’t’ seem to cut it Kara.” She muttered to herself.

And she was a historian. What was the point in any of the last 3 months if not to explore a little bit? Kara double checked the countdown on the console.

_And if the pod isn’t going anywhere for five more hours._

On the other hand, there had clearly been a major malfunction. If she went outside and the stupid thing went without her.

_I’ll be in deep shit_.

Presumably the pod and everyone else thought she was in 14th century Shrewsbury. Yes, a sensible person would definitely not go outside.

So naturally. Kara picked up the basket and wedged it in the doorway. If the door didn’t close then the pod couldn’t jump. _Theoretically_.

Standing in the doorway for a long second, she took a step outside. Nothing changed, so she took another. Even though she didn’t know where or when she’d landed, nothing could detract from her excitement.

She was _IN_ another time. She was a historian! She held out her arms and twirled around and around.

_I am a historian!_

The sights she was going to see!

She shouted, “YES!” turned a cartwheel, and her coif fell off.

It seemed wise after that that she calmed down a little bit. After all, she didn’t want her first jump to be her last. Protocol says the first thing to do is to establish personal safety (always an optional extra for historians). Kara scrambled up on to the roof and revolved slowly around 360 degrees. Shading her eyes, she turned around the other way.

Below her the computer remained silent. None of the proximity alerts went off. But she still had no idea where she was (or when for that matter) but this world was empty. Nothing impeded the view from horizon to horizon; nothing in the sky; no smoke, no vapour trails; not even a bird. She was completely alone.

It should have been frightening. Silence had always made her nervous. But she was only going to be here for five hours and after all those years of college, post-grad work, archaeological digs, _plus_ all the insanity that St Deo’s had to offer, it was almost pleasant just to stand, eyes closed, with the sun on her face and listen to the silence.

It only took her five minutes before she realised she could improve this situation further. Jumping down from the roof, Kara snagged herself a high-energy chocolate bad from the ration locker, brewed herself some coffee and spread her cloak on the ground outside on the sunny side of the pod.

She was happily sunning herself when the computer cleared its throat and announced sixty minutes until the return jump.

_Assignment completed! I’ve done it!_

Kara jumped to her feet and did a quick tidy (historians should never go back with a messy pod – lest the techies start complaining) She picked everything up, did the outside FOD plod (Foreign object drop) to check she’d left nothing behind and an inside FOD to makes sure that the she hadn’t accidently picked something up (Super important that – the Pod wouldn’t jump with anything contemporary inside of it). She folded her cloak and put it inside the basket, nestling it back into the second chair for the journey home. Incinerated her chocolate wrapper, washed her face and hands and settled herself into the chair.

She was idly drumming her fingers on the console when the computer reminded her again at thirty minutes. And again, at ten minutes, five minutes, one minute and finally, at thirty seconds.

_I’ll be back in seconds, shout at the techies for not knowing their Shrewsbury from their elbow, have a coffee with the Chief, check into Sick Bay, sign something official, exchange my greys for blues, yeet the word trainee into outer space, and become a proper, fully fledged historian._

_Look out world._

“Ten, Nine, Eight,” said the computer. “Five, Four, Three.” And then the voice stopped and the entire console when dark.

The _entire_ console went dark.

This time she did panic. Her heart stopped and it wasn’t until her chest began to hurt that she remembered to breathe. Gripping the edge of the console, she shouted. “No, no, no, no!” and began to thump the panel. (Strangely, this failed to work at all.

She struggled to stay calm. She kept staring at the console, desperately willing it to fire up again. She had never ever heard of this happening. She’d never seen a dark panel because no pod had ever failed before.

This couldn’t be any worse. She was stranded in an unknown destination. The pod had malfunctioned and thought it was in Shrewsbury in the 1400s and so any search initiated by St Deo’s would go there.

“If I don’t know where I am, how on earth is Alex going to find me?” Kara whispered to herself.

_This is all my fault._

If she’d gone back when it became obvious that the jump had gone wrong, she wouldn’t be where she is now.

“Computer.”

No response.

“Computer, status report.”

Still nothing.

“Computer, open the door.”

The door stayed shut.

She pushed the manual control and the door slid open. So she still had power and life support, she just _didn’t_ have a working pod. For all intents and purposes it was now just a hut.

She switched the lights off and then back on again. It had gotten noticeably colder outside, so she shut the door. The sun was lower, it would be getting dark within the next hour or so.

In the true spirit of _what would Alex Danvers do_ , Kara made herself a cup of coffee, curled up in the first chair, spread her cloak over her lap, cuddled her coffee and tried to think about what to do. In fact, the only thing missing from the Alex Danvers school of panicked situations, was the whisky for the Irish coffee.

It didn’t take long for her to conclude that there was nothing she could do. She could take the panel off and have a look. Then she would just shrug her shoulders and replace the panel. After all, there were twinkies with more electronic know-how than her.

_I’m fucked_.

Weirdly, she found that conclusion quite liberating. When you’re fucked, you’re fucked, things couldn’t really get much worse.

With that thought, the last sunlight disappeared outside. The sensible thing to do would be to conserve power and go to bed with the sun. But she didn’t sleep well in the best of circumstances and there was zero chance tonight, so she thought she’d use the time productively.

Kara began opening and closing doors, pulling out drawers, checking her resources and generally taking stock. As it happened she had rations for fourteen days, give or take. And she’d have more if she stuck to two meals a day. Same with water. The loo appeared to be in working order ( _for now_ ) as did the incinerator. She found two notepads she could use to maintain a mission log and heavy weather clothing she’d forgotten about until now (all of which were far to big for her)

Matches, a compass, water tablets, two sleeping modules and a spare blanket (with an odd smell)  were all accounted for. So all in all, it could be worse.

She shoved her arm into the rations pile and pulled out two trays at random. Chicken curry and stewed apple.

_Ewww._

Kara tossed the stewed apple into a corner and pulled out sticky toffee pudding. If she was going to die alone and abandoned she’d be very unimpressed if she was going to do it on stewed apples.

Thankfully the food actually tasted alright. It was fortunate that she was such a terrible cook and had such low expectations. (She also thought that airline food was great) She pulled the red heating tabs and munched away. After that she took down and plaited her hair, pulled out one of the sleep modules and tried to settle down for the night.

It was a long night; a long, long night. Kara dozed of a couple of times but not for very long. Instead she made a mental list of the Presidents of the United States, and their wives, composed an imaginary essay on the causes of the War of the Roses and listed her top ten favourite books, then favourite movies. _Then_ she listed Alex’s top books, movies, historical love affairs and their personal favourite – history’s most blatant lesbians.

It was a long night.

When the external screens showed a cold, grey light outside, she crawled out of the module and got some coffee.

She tried talking to the computer again, but it wasn’t having any of it. Her heart twinged when she remembered that this time yesterday she was shovelling in breakfast with Alex and her fellow trainees.

_Oh god. What If something had happened to them too?_

Kara took a minute to quell the rising panic. She took heaving breaths and clenched her hands around her chair.

_What would Alex do?_

Her training said it was important to establish a routine, so she began to map out her day.

  1. Put away sleeping gear.
  2. Tidy the pod.
  3. Tidy myself (hair optional)
  4. Mid-Morning Brunch (very much _not_ optional)
  5. Roof for human watching (Run towards or away from – ??????)
  6. Run for an hour. (Or walk – It’s not like Captain Lance is watching) _Or is she_.
  7. Tan
  8. Eat
  9. Read
  10. Eat
  11. Daily log.
  12. Sleep (DO NOT LIE AWAKE PANICKING)



And that was Kara’s life was for two days. On the third day, she was sitting outside, using a valuable page from one of the notebooks to draw horrendous caricatures of Alex, Winn and James (if the Chief’s was less goofy and more stunningly beautiful, who was Kara to comment) when something clicked in her head.

_This isn’t a bad life._

_I’ve got good weather, a safe environment, something to read, enough to eat._

_I’ve got everything I need to survive comfortably for a fortnight at least._

Another click.

_How lucky was I that this pod was loaded ready for a quick turn over. Even though there were other pods left behind._

And then she started to laugh. As if Chief Luthor would ever send out an unreliable pod with a trainee.

This was why they were sent alone.

It wasn’t an afternoon in Shrewsbury that was the test. This was the real test.

To survive, alone, lost, with no hope of rescue or backup.

_This was why Chief Luthor programmed the coordinates herself._

Kara bet if she just sat quietly and waited; the pod would re-activate itself in twelve days’ time and get her back to St Deo’s as if nothing had happened.

And if that was the case, then she was going to tough it out. Of course, if she was wrong, she was going to look pretty silly in twelve days’ time. On the other hand, who would know?

The days slipped slowly by; each one the same as the last, the landscape the same, the weather, everything exactly the same as the day before.

So, she sat in the sun, twiddling her thumbs, brain in neutral, her mind drifting. She thought about the chain of events that led her to this moment. She swerved right around her parent’s deaths and the following years. Instead she thought about Alex, and hoped that If she never made it back she’d be ok. That Maggie, Sam and the whole crew at St Deo’s would look out for her. And she could be happy.

Kara allows herself to on the side of Alex she was now privy to. The happy, laughing, open women she had become. They’d only had each other for so long, after Eliza had passed, before she’d ran off to the Amazon and Alex had drowned herself in work – which had turned out to be St Deo’s. But now they had each other and this incredible life that they shared together.

 If she got back.

If she got back, there was a whole host of things she was determined to deal with.

And at the top of that list was the Chief. (Right above the biggest pizza she could possibly order)

But what exactly did deal with it mean?

Would she march into Hawking and sweep her off her feet?

Or would she wait for her to bring her a coffee and confess. _What. What would I confess._ Kara ran her fingers through her hair.

_Hi, Chief. I want to have mad passionate sex with you on top of this console, and then maybe, if you like, go for a stroll around the lake, grab some dinner, eat some ice cream, rinse and repeat for the rest of my natural life._

Kara blushed furiously.

_Maybe not._

* * *

Kara added to her log after that, spending five or six pages on the subject of technical incompetence and embellishing the text with small sketches.

She had long chats with herself (more like mini pep-talks and even the odd debate on pineapple on pizza), tried new ways of wearing her hair (Her up-doos were going to be _much_ fancier going forwards). And generally doing her best not to think about what would happen on Day 14.

Which came, of course, shortly after Day 13 (as it tends to). Kara didn’t leave the pod all day, waiting for the console to light up again.

It didn’t.

Noon came and went.

She sat unmoving.

The sun started to go down. Shadows lengthened and still she sat in total silence.

Nothing happened.

It began to get dark and _still_ nothing happened.

Kara clenched her hands tightly in her lap, sitting in the dark.

Nothing happened.

The only thought clanking around her head was that this was self-inflicted. Obviously, _obviously_ , she should have declared an emergency and returned home at once, when she still could, when the system was still working.

_How could I have pushed my luck like this?_

She dropped off after that, awakening cold and stiff, early on the morning of Day 15 with some hard thinking to do. She reviewed her resources, she had about three days’ left of food and slightly less water. It was definitely time to go home.

_On the other hand…on the other hand… ON THE OTHER HAND… maybe THIS was part of the test._

_How traumatic would it be to be marooned somewhere safe and quiet and with plenty of food?_

_Answer: Not at all Kara._

So maybe the test was survival after all expectation of rescue was past and supplies had run out.

“I can survive three minutes without oxygen. Three days without water. Three weeks without food.” Kara reasoned. “Should I leave the pod to find water and miss the chance of possible extraction? Or should I stay put and gamble on being rescued before I die of dehydration?”

_Which, according to Doctor Arias at least was **not** a pleasant way to die. _

Kara grimaced.

_But short of expiring of exhaustion underneath a chocolate covered Lena Luthor, what is a pleasant way to die_?

She felt herself flush again, the butterflies in her stomach swirling up a storm, before she forced herself back to the matter at hand.

_Should I start rationing?_ She could last for maybe an extra two or three days.

_Or._ Kara looked up. _Or I could eat and drink the lot and die slightly happier?_

Day 15 ended. Kara pulled out her notepad and thought about leaving details of who she was and why she was here, in case her remains should ever be found.

She toyed with the idea of creating an elaborate legend. But in the end she settled for letting them guess; organised religion would surely come up with something a hundred times more inventive than she could.

Instead, she wrote a letter to Alex. Poured her heart and soul into almost half a notebook’s worth of pages. She cried a little when she tried to pour a lifetimes worth of gratitude and love onto paper.

Kara had a sudden, heartrending vision pf Alex, legs dangling off the gantry in Hawking, Maggie hovering nervously behind her. The Chief, sitting alone with a mug of cold coffee by her side. And Kara had to blink back a tear of self-pity. Would her name go up on the Boards in the chapel? She wasn’t technically a historian yet, so she might not count.

As she sat outside with her arms around her knees and dreaming up a whole host of gloomy thoughts, she heard a click, a hum and the entire console lit up like the Christmas display in Macy’s. Lights flashed, requiring a response.

Kara scrambled to her feet, tripped on her skirt and rushed in to look. The readouts all looked normal, the countdown held at 4, awaiting confirmation to continue. For a moment, she thought she might faint. Instead, she sat heavily and waited for her innards to subside. Pulling herself together, she shut the door; kicked the lockers closed, rolled up her sleeping gear, splashed water on her face – all in about thirty seconds. After that, she sat down, ordered her heart to slow down and activated the countdown.

The world went white.

There was a slight bump and she was home.

_Oh god, I’m home!_

Daring to open her eyes, Kara peered through the screen and was amazed to see St Deo’s carrying on pretty much as normal.

_Don’t these idiots know what’s just happened?!_ Then she sat back. Of course they didn’t’ know. She’d never been in any sort of danger at all.

_Well. If they can play it cool then so can I._

She activated the decon unit and sat back while the cold blue light worked its magic.

She grinned when she saw the Chief crossing the floor with a mug of steaming coffee. She knocked on the door.

Kara called, “Who’s there?”

There was a long pause, enough for the word ‘cocky’ to not actually be spoken aloud, she said. “Room service.”

Kara laughed and opened the door. The Chief handed Kara the coffee and began shutting things down. Outside, she could see the techies plugging in the umbilical’s.

“How did it go?”

“It was fine. I ate, I read, worked on the tan. Ate some more. Thought about St Deo’s best kept secret.” Kara grinned ruefully.

“I’m super impressed. Actually super, super impressed. I didn’t have – none of us had – the slightest idea about this. How has St Deo’s kept this a secret over the years? You all can’t even keep your mouth shut about what’s on the menu for desert let alone this!”

“Everyone knows the benefits of keeping it quiet. Although I think Maggie had to do some serious bribery to get Alex to keep her mouth shut. But it’s the most valuable test we’ve got. The most nerve-wracking, for us – and you of course.”

“This is a truly fantastic coffee.” Kara raised her mug, she didn’t want to think about just how nerve-wracking it had gotten.

Chief Luthor, seemed to get the hint. “How long ago did you run out?”

“Two, long, chocolate-less days.”

“We got it spot on then!” The Chief said happily. “We have to try and gauge it so you’re close to running out of supplies, but haven’t yet struck across country to search for help. When exactly were you planning to go?”

“I wasn’t. I knew you wouldn’t let me starve.” Kara said, grinning broadly.

“No one likes a smartass Miss Danvers.”

“Does that mean I failed?”

“It makes you top of the class.”

_Yes!_ Kara refrained from doing a physical fist pump.

“How about the others? Are they back yet?”

Chief Luthor frowned. “Ronnie activated his emergency extraction as soon as he realised he wasn’t where he should be, which is _of course_ , the correct procedure.” She raised an eyebrow and stared at Kara.

Kara just shrugged and motioned for her to continue.

“Caitlin came back when her console failed. I’m sorry to say she wasn’t very calm and has subsequently left the unit.”

“She’s gone?”

“She couldn’t wait. She had a fairly tense conversation with Ronnie and left immediately.”

“Did she leave a message for me?”

“I’m sorry, she didn’t.”

That hurt. They’d been together for a long time and she was the only other girl in her class. Kara liked her, and she’d left without so much as a goodbye.

“Mike says he worked it out, but demanded emergency extraction after five days, claiming utter boredom. He exited the pod and decked the first technician he came across, who happened to be Mr Schott, and so spend the rest of the day in Sick Bay recovering consciousness after Mr Olsen got his hands on him. You’re the last back.”

“Is that good, or bad?” Kara asks nervously.

“It shows us a certain mindset.”

The Chief gave Kara her first truly blinding smile and Kara almost shattered her coffee mug.

She was still in a daze when set out for Sick Bay and the more than scary Dr Arias. If there was an opposite of a good bedside manner, then Sam Arias has it. (Although in the bar after work, she was more than pleasant – much to Kara’s upmost surprise).

“Come in Danvers.” Dr Arias activated a data stack, went to sit on the window sill, rummaged in her pockets, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one.

“Have you ingested or imbibed anything other than standard rations?”

Kara looked pointedly at the smoke detector. “No”

“Don’t worry Miss Danvers, I took the battery out years ago.”

Kara got the distinct feeling that Chief Luthor was fighting a losing battle with smoke detectors and fire alarms.

“Have you had sexual relations, or exchanged bodily fluids with anyone outside this timeline?”

Once again Kara blushed.

“Sadly, no.” _Or with anyone in this timeline either._

“Too much information. Have you received any injuries, wounds, broken your skin, have a rash or skin lesions…?”

And on and on and on it went. After a while, Sam flipped her dog end out of the window There was a squawk from outside.

“I keep telling you, Winn, don’t stand there!”

Eventually, they established that Kara had spent sixteen days of unparalleled tedium and that constituted no threat to life. With that all signed and sealed. Kara skipped off to see Ms Grant, who made Kara sign enough paperwork she was surprised trees weren’t an endangered species. (All of the paperwork effectively stated that everything that happened to her from this point on was entirely Kara’s own fault – in about 16 different languages).

Once Kara had _literally_ signed her life away, she was sent off to Wardrobe to get her blues, before being sent back to Ms Grant, who allocated her a new room in the main building.

Kara practically skipped up to her new attic room. She had Alex opposite her, Lucy Lane (another historian) on the other side of her, and Maggie Sawyer at her diagonal.

There was a deafening yell when she entered.

Alex swept her into a bear hug and they jumped around and around in a circle until they couldn’t catch their breaths. Once the world stopped spinning, Kara saw Winn standing on her new bed holding one end of the banner and James on the sofa holding the other side.

_Watch out history!_ Donned the banner, with a horrendous photo of a drunk Kara plastered onto a wanted poster beneath the words.

She also noticed that apart from the standard furnishings, there was a new rug, a photo collage of moments since she joined St Deo’s and of Kara and Alex’s misspent youth spread across one wall. And even a new set of paints and brushes sat on the desk in the corner. Alex had set it up perfectly.

“I’m so proud of you Kara.” Alex whispered into her hair.

“I thought I was a gonner, I’d written you a letter and everything.”

“Don’t worry about it Kar, I’ve still got the one I wrote to you when it happened to me.”

Winn laughed. “This guy wrote me a ten page list of reasons I should date him.” He pointed his thumb towards James, who ran a hand down his face, cringing with embarrassment.

“Hey, it worked didn’t it. Besides, you wrote an equally detailed _12_ page response. **And** you’ve got it framed on your wall, so don’t even try it, Mr Schott.”

Kara just grinned, utterly euphoric. Maybe she should have written one for Chief Luthor.

It seemed like Alex had had the same thought, because the next thing Kara knew, Alex was waggling her eyebrows suggestively.

“Don’t even say it. Don’t even think it.”

“But, Kar – “

Maggie’s perfectly timed appearance at the open-door way holding enough pizza boxes Kara wasn’t even sure it _was_ Maggie behind the mountain, was enough to distract Alex, who rushed to Maggie’s side (ever the knight in shining armour).

As Kara lay on her bed nearly an hour later, rubbing her hand gently over her food baby; Alex at her feet, Winn and James against the wall and Maggie lying practically on top of her sister, she realised she was perfectly content. She had an amazing family, good friends. And the ever-amazing Chief Luthor to bring her all the coffee she could ever need.

Indeed, life was good.

At least, it was for now.

Tomorrow could very well be a different story. And next week. Well that was something else entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to everyone who's read and kudos'd and to everyone who's commented, I cannot thank you enough, it makes this whole thing worth it.  
> Are there any historical times anyone is super keen to visit?
> 
> We're getting into more Supercorp territory going forwards, much more superfriends, my ultimate favourite Danvers' sisters, Sanvers and throwing in some Scholsen for good measure! 
> 
> Thanks again folks.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disaster continues to be a way of life at St Deo's. 
> 
> As does sugary coffee; 11th century sex jokes and the First World War.

It felt like all tomorrow held for St Deo’s was disaster.

Whilst training had been amongst the most difficult thing Kara had ever had to do, it had been hard work, strenuous activity and about 25% of the time terrifying but despite it all they’d survived. Albeit with cuts, bruises and the odd fracture. Aside from that, it hadn’t been _particularly_ hazardous.

During Kara’s first two weeks as a fully-fledged historian, all of that changed.

 

* * *

 

“I’m off to Manchester.” Alex bounded triumphantly through the door, nearly sending Kara and her mug of coffee careening across the room.

“New Hampshire?”

Alex gave Kara a look that made her seriously wonder if she’d grown a second head.

“England, you dummy.”

“Ah.” _I totally knew that._

Kara had to hastily shuffle up to the edge of the sofa lest she be crushed by her sisters looming body.

“ _Finally_.” Alex exclaimed, flopping onto the couch.

“Is that the assignment you were trying to get past Doctor J’onzz months ago?”

“Yeah. _The History of Protest and Democracy: 1215 – 1918._ ”

“Only a little bit of history then.” Kara grinned.

“All in a day’s work for Danvers and Lane.”

“Or several months, dozens of jumps, and a lifetime in the archives?”

“Less snappy than I was going for.”

“So Manchester you say.” 

“That’s the one, 1819.” Alex dropped the clue, waiting for Kara to speed through any number of historical events.

“So it’s about protest, democracy, it’s in Manchester AND its mid-industrial revolution?”

Alex nodded.

“Peterloo?” Kara sounded unsure. But if the mini fist pump that Alex greeted her with any indication, she was right on the money.

“Peterloo is the first stop on our whirlwind tour, followed by the Magna Carta and the Peasant’s Revolt.” Alex looked like she was fit to burst with excitement and Kara was over the moon for her.

 She’d heard Alex and Lucy debating the best pitching strategy for weeks, but she hadn’t heard the details. 

All Kara did knew was that 60,000 men, women and children came up against a decidedly drunk yeomanry and 18 people had died, whilst the military received a letter of congratulations from the Prince Regent. All in all it had not been a very successful Monday.

If Kara thought Alex had been excited, she’d had nothing on Lucy Lane. Lucy was practically rocketing around the halls of St Deo’s. Industrial History was her speciality and this was like hitting a home run for her. In fact – this was her Troy.

“Um, Luce?” James sat next to Lucy at breakfast three days before they were due to depart.

Kara had hardly seen Alex the past week, and when she had, her sister had been nose deep in two or three books simultaneously. So seeing both Lucy and Alex at breakfast had been a pleasant surprise.

“Mmm?” Lucy looked up from where she’d been shuffling her oatmeal around her bowl.

“Are you ok? You’re looking peaky?” James asked tentatively.

“Totally fine. Absolutely positively fine.” Lucy said with a smile, that only made everyone’s brows furrow with concern.

“Is that why you’ve been having stomach pains and double dosing on laxatives.”  Doctor Arias hovered behind Lucy, hands on her hips. Kara saw Lucy visibly gulp.

“I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about Sam. Pretty sure Winn told me those were tic tacs?” A thin sheen of sweat had gathered at her hairline. She flung Winn a look of desperation.

Winn opened his mouth as if to speak, his eyes widening in panic. Kara was pretty sure he’d had a stroke. 

“Sick bay, Miss Lane.”

“I’m honestly fine, it’s just –“ She doubled over, her voice was strained when she said “ – indigestion.”

Sam just raised an eyebrow then helped a dejected Lucy Lane to her feet and carted her off to meet her fate in sick bay.

For those left behind there was a moment of stunned silence.

When Winn finally regained control of his mental faculties, he looked over at Alex.

“Soooo, will you be auditioning for a replacement? Or be stood down?”

Alex blanched.

“She’ll be fine, Sam’s just being cautious.”

 

* * *

 

 

It was much later when Kara was sat sipping a mug of sugar – _sorry_ coffee (surreptitiously left at her usual table) in the library with no great enthusiasm that she found out that Doctor Arias wasn’t _just_ being cautious. Mike sat across the table, face down in a book. If Kara looked really closely she thought she could see the overhead lighting glimmering off a slither of drool. If Gideon found him soiling one of her precious books, there’d be nowhere in history safe enough for him.

As it was, Mike nearly flung himself onto the floor in shock when Ronnie barrelled up to their table beside Kara, his face flushed with excitement.

“Guess what?”

Kara shrugged and motioned for him to go on.

“Lane has appendicitis; they’re taking it out right now.”

Kara’s first reaction was sympathy and then disappointment for Alex if she was stood down. 

“Who’s going with Alex then?”

“Obviously, it’s going to be one of us.” Mike said, with a slight eye roll.  

Kara sat straighter in her chair.

“Seriously?”

“Well the pod schedule is full to bursting over the next 6 months. There’s no time to reschedule the jump. So they’ll just replace Lucy.”

_Now that. That was interesting_.

“Why one of us though?” Kara asked. “Why not James? He’s part security, part historian – this is practically what his role is made for.”

“He’s scouting ahead with Captain Lance for Reynolds and Davidson’s jump to Gallipoli. So he’s off the table. Obviously Lucy’s down. R & D leave on their jump pretty much as soon as James returns. So it’s got to be one of us.” Ronnie said, as if the realisation of what this all meant dawned on him.  

Kara locked eyes with him across the table and slowly stood, desperate to appear nonchalant.

“Well, sadly, I’ve got places to be all morning, pile of anthropology papers to read.” Kara tried her best pout.

“Me too,” Ronnie responded casually. “What a bummer.”

Then all hell broke loose.

Kara beat him to the door, but Ronnie drew ahead as they galloped across the hall. It didn’t do him any good because by the time they got to Gideon’s office she was sat there (wise in the way of the historian by this point) with two files already waiting.

“What about Mike’s file?”

Gideon polished her glasses. “Oh, he picked his up a good hour ago. I’m afraid he’s got a quite a head start on the two of you.”

_Bastard_.

Ronnie and Kara eyed each other, and then by unspoken consent, split up. Kara settled down and sorted through the material. The assignment had been picked up by NCU after Alex and Lucy had pitched it to them and the brief was straight forwards.

Observe and authenticate.

Standard bread and butter stuff.

Kara wondered who would eventually be picked to accompany Alex. It wasn’t Kara’s specialty or any of her secondary areas either. It certainly wasn’t Mike’s. Ronnie was the closest with the French Revolution. But he was also quiet and easily overlooked. It had to be between Kara and Mike.

She reviewed the file twice before her stomach grumbled so loudly one of the admin clerks in the archive looked over in what Kara perceived to be abject horror.

As Kara walked into the dining room Mike was waiting. Smirking.

Sitting opposite him, she unwrapped her sandwich.

“Jackass.”

“Early bird,” he said, smugly. “No point in knocking yourself out though, I’ve already volunteered.”

“But you haven’t got it yet?”

“Well, there isn’t anyone else, is there?”

“Actually, yes. Ronnie’s speciality is closer than Early Byzantine. In fact, everything’s closer than Early Byzantine.”

“Except Ancient Civilisations. Face it, Danvers, you couldn’t be any further away if you tried. Plus, they won’t let you with your sister for your first mission, it’d reek of favouritism. They’re gonna pick me.”

“They won’t’ send you back to a riot.”

“Don’t give me any of that. I can handle myself better than you can, any time, any place. Besides, I graduated top – “

“Ah – ah – ah. I was two points ahead of you.”

“ – I know the period. I’ve read the brief and I’ve already registered and interest.

Kara opened her mouth but never got to speak because suddenly Ronnie was with them. She only had to look at him to know. He practically glowed with excitement and pride and his grin could be seen from space.

“No!” protested Mike. “Surely not. What on early are they thinking?”

_You’re such an insensitive jerk sometimes Mike!_

Swallowing her disappointment, Kara turned to Ronnie. “You lucky devil! Guess that makes you the first of us on the active list!”

He nodded, still to full of it to speak.

“Well done,” Kara said. “I mean it,” and she kicked Mike under the table. Hard.

“Ow! Yes, well done.” He scowled and Kara kicked him again. “Will you stop doing that?”

Kara nodded towards Ronnie. “Its his first assignment. It’s _our_ first assignment. Make a goddamn effort!”

“OK. OK. Well done Ron. When do you go?”

“Tomorrow afternoon. Alex is briefing me in…” he looked at his watch.

“…now.” He scrambled to his feet and nearly tripped over his chair.

Mike handed him his untouched sandwiches. “Here, you should eat before you fall over. Take these.”

Kara shook her head slightly at the interaction. Everytime she thought Mike was a complete and utter jerk, he surprise her.

“I still can’t believe they chose me,” he said on several occasions, which in turn caused Kara to kick Mike again before he could agree with him.

“You deserve it,” she told him. “You worked really hard for this.”

And he had. He wasn’t showy like Mike or even her, but he’d put in hours of solid, hard, unspectacular work. It meant he’d have seniority over Mike and Kara as well.

Kara was almost certain Mike hadn’t worked that one out yet, but she was sure he would.

And it didn’t take him too long. In fact it took 10 seconds after Ronnie had gone into his meeting with Alex for the other shoe to drop.

“Hang on a minute – “

Kara made a break for it instead.

 

* * *

 

 

“Are there any donuts left over there?” Kara yawned.

She was lying flat out on one of the central tables in the library. Briefing paper after briefing paper scattered around her head.

“You ate the last 6.” Mike grumbled, lifting his head from his folded arms.

“You say that like you have a point.” Kara grumbled rolling onto her front.

They’d been in the library with Ronnie since he got out of his briefing nearly 10 hours ago. Ronnie who was (somehow) still sitting with his back straight highlighting something photocopied from the archive.

Kara had been giving him a highlight reel of witness accounts from the day, whilst Mike had given him the rundown on events leading up to Peterloo. But Kara was beginning to think there was only so much cramming you can do. And she was close to tapping out.

“So donuts?” Kara prompted again, peeking under papers looking for the plate that had started the evening piled high.

“You literally ate them all. They’re all gone.”

That did it. Kara was tapping out.

“Ronnie, you need to get some sleep. Jump time is in – “ She strained her eyes to see the clock. “9 hours.”

“Oh.”

Ronnie looked at them sheepishly.

“Sorry guys. I didn’t realise we’d been here that long.”

“Don’t worry about it. C’mon let’s get you to bed.”

A quick shuffling of papers, and straightening of chairs, had their workspace looking as neat as anything in St Deo’s (that is to say it was in a terrible state).

Kara bid farewell to the boys at the bottom of the stairs, and trudged her way up to the attic. There was a considerable amount of giggling coming from Alex’s room and Kara shivered when she thought about what might be causing said giggling.

Instead of running straight to her room and swan diving into bed, she raised her voice, confident that despite the late hour and with Lucy in Sick Bay she wouldn’t be disturbing anyone.

“You jump in 9 hours. Go the fuck to sleep!”  

The giggling stopped. Kara had smirked as she fumbled with her key.

It seemed like Maggie Sawyer had other ideas however. Before Kara had even got her door open, the deepest groan echoed into the corridor.

“ _Oh Alex._ ” Followed by rhythmic banging on the door.

“ _Maggie.”_

Kara squealed indignantly, and dropped her keys in her haste.

_“Oh. Oh - .”_

_“_ I GET IT!” Kara shouted.

The door behind her swung open Alex and Maggie spilled into the corridor, nearly crying with laughter.

To Kara’s great relief they were both fully clothed.

“Oh thank god.”

“Panic not little Danvers, I didn’t defile your sister.”

Alex gave her a light smack on the arm, before rolling her eyes fondly.

“Nope, that’s a post-jump tradition.”

Kara groaned, unlocked her door, flipped off Maggie and disappeared inside.

 

* * *

 

Nine hours later Kara was still mentally trying to bleach her brain.

“Why does your face look like the epitome of ‘ _sorry not sorry’_?” Kara scowled at Alex across breakfast.

Alex grinned into her breakfast and shrugged one shoulder.

“Because, whilst I’m sorry you’re a tad more scarred than before. I am totally unapologetic about how my evening worked out.”

Kara’s face twisted into a grimace. Alex stood up and gave Kara a hug from behind.

“I’ve got to get to wardrobe. But I love you, stay safe, don’t burn the place down. And I’ll see you in Hawking?”

Kara twisted in Alex’s arms and stood up. If her sister was going on an assignment, she was in no way satisfied with a half arsed hug.

Kara flung her arms around Alex and squeezed tightly. They stood like that, long enough for Ronnie to clear his throat awkwardly behind them.

“Sorry Ronnie.” Kara reluctantly released Alex and waved them off.

The next time they saw each other, Kara was hanging over the gantry. Ronnie marched down the hangar beside Alex, so full of pride and purpose that Kara’s heart nearly burst for him. Even Mike clapped and whistled.

The whole atmosphere in Hawking seemed electric. And Kara could almost imagine some ring entry music with the way everyone was spectating, whistling, clapping and even the odd cat call, which had Alex threatening to kill Mick Rory from Security with just a glare.

Alex gave her a little salute as they paused in the doorway before they disappeared into their pod.

After a minute or two, Kara saw Chief Luthor emerge from her office to wave everybody back behind the safety line. And thirty seconds later, they were gone.

Kara spent the rest of the day mooching around near Hawking. She knew it was a real-time jump. They’d be gone the same length of time in ‘real-life’ as they would be in the past. Which, unfortunately for everyone else in St Deo’s meant a very antsy, sugar high Kara Danvers knocking around the joint.

“Miss Danvers.” Kara nearly jumped out of her skin as the Chief’s voice came from seemingly nowhere.

“Chief! I didn’t see you there.”

“I’m not surprised, Mr Schott has been trying to get your attention every-time you loop past his window.”

Kara peered behind her and indeed saw Winn waving at her from his desk.

“Oh! Sorry Chief, I’m a bit distracted today is all.”

“It’s fine. I um – “ Chief Luthor clasped her hands together in front of her. “Sam – _sorry_ – Doctor Arias has given Miss Lane permission to be in the hangar when they return.”

“Brilliant.” Kara grinned.

“The only hitch is, Miss Lane is refusing to use a wheelchair, and short of chaining her into said chair – _which even for us seems extreme –_ we need someone to talk her round. Interested?”

Kara nodded.

 “I’ll come along for the walk.” Lena said stepping aside so Kara could get past, then she caught herself. “If you don’t mind of course. I wouldn’t want to intrude.  I uh – “

Kara just rested her hand on the Chief’s and smiled.

“Sounds great.”

Reluctantly, they broke eye contact and Kara started playing with her glasses nervously instead of practically holding the Chief’s hand.

It was only when Kara looked back at the Chief as they walked out into the corridor that Kara thought she saw a blush spreading out from beneath the luminous orange jump suit.

The butterflies flying in her stomach didn’t make trying to act ‘ _cool_ ‘ the rest of the way to sick bay any easier.

 

* * *

 

Turns out running through the corridor with a wheelchair containing an incredibly grumpy Lucy Lane cuts travel time down by at least 82 seconds. Techies, clerks and even the kitchen staff scattered into storage cupboards, random corridors, even into each other (Kara could have sworn she saw Ava Sharpe gallantly throw herself in front of Captain Lance as she took one particular corner on two wheels).

They made it to Hawking with ample amounts of time to spare. Lucy sat with her arms crossed, trying her best to pull off the pyjama chique look, desperate not to look as tired and in pain as she clearly was (lest Doctor Arias lock her away for good).

Kara was eagerly bouncing on her feet. She was imagining Ronnie, stumbling out of the pod, eager to tell us all his adventures, absolutely full of himself.

She nudged Mike, who’d wriggled through the crowd to stand next to her.  “Be nice.”

He looked offended. “Of course I will.”

They both looked at each other and grinned.

It was going to be them coming out of that pod soon.

The light above Number Five flickered. Kara craned forward on the gantry, prepared to give Ronnie a hero’s welcome. He was the first of their intake to jump, he deserved something special. They had a big night planned as soon as he got clear from sick bay.

The pod materialised.

And then nothing happened.

Kara felt a chill settle in her stomach, replacing what had been bubbling excitement.

As clear as yesterday Kara remembered Chief Luthor saying, ‘ _You get a feel for it_ ’

And she was certainly feeling it now, and she clearly wasn’t the only one. Around her the hangar fell quiet.

Chief Luthor crossed the floor, tapped on the door and disappeared inside. Kara’s whole body tensed as she waited for the shout of ‘Medic’, but nothing happened. Beside her, Lucy whispered, ‘Alex’ and if possible, got even paler.

Kara’s stomach had plummeted through the floor. Alex.

_Oh god. Alex._

After endless moments, the Chief reappeared, supporting a blood-soaked Alex. Kara nearly vaulted over the gantry, broken legs be damned. It was Lucy’s arm on her suddenly tensed forearms that gave her pause for thought.

Alex was upright and walking, so Kara guessed ( _prayed_ ) that most of the blood wasn’t hers, which left –

Alex made eye contact with Kara on the gantry and shook her head.

Doctor Arias appeared from nowhere, entered the pod and shut the door. After that Captain Lance began to clear the hangar.

Kara went to take Lucy back to sick bay, but again a hand on her arm stopped her.

“Bar.” That was the only words Lucy spoke as Kara redirected them to the bar.

She was itching to go find her sister, to find out just what had happened. And oh god, was Ronnie dead.

_Ronnie was dead_. _That’s what that headshake was. Oh god._

Kara sat quietly alongside Winn, huddling together almost for warmth and support. Opposite her, sat Mike. If Kara looked half as lost and like she’d had the stuffing knocked clear out of her as he did, she must look like death himself warmed up.

Next to Winn sat James and next to him was Maggie. She was nervously making tiny piles of sugar and shredding the packets.

Alex trudged in almost an hour later, looking pale and with a stitched gash over her eye. Kara and Maggie shot to their feet, legs bashing the table, neither of them registering any pain in their mad dash to the door.

They both rushed towards Alex, stopping just short of her and awkwardly looking at each other.

Alex just tutted and pulled them both in. It was a tight and desperate hug, with limbs awkwardly clashing against each other. Eventually they parted and Alex slipped her hands into Kara’s and gripped it tightly leading her back towards the table.

They sat in silence for a little longer before Lucy finally spoke.

“What happened?”

There was a long silence. Alex choosing her words carefully.

“He was inexperienced. I didn’t supervise him properly.” She said quietly, touching her forehead gingerly.

“The Yeomanry were drunk. Absolutley wasted. A woman and her two kids fell down in the panic.” Alex linked her fingers and looked at them carefully, as if seeing them for the very first time.

“Ronnie ran over to them. Picked up the two kids. Tossed them out of the way, grabbed the woman. Took a sword to the back of his head.”

There was a sharp intake of breath somewhere around the table. Kara tightened her grim on Alex’s leg.

“His body got kicked around all over the place. I couldn’t get to him at first. Apparently a woman rolling around in the dirt shouting and swearing attracts some attention. I got him over my shoulder, and dragged him back to the pod.”

She took a shuddering breath.

“It was too late. He never stood a chance.”

In Kara’s mind, she saw snapshots: Ronnie on the first day, filing his papers like there was nothing more important in the world. Ronnie sitting next to her in the classroom, his face in a frown and his tongue poking out of the side of his mouth as built a data stack. Ronnie with his head close to Caitlin as they laughed over something he’d drawn on his sketchpad. She remembered his calm, good nature and his willingness to help Brian. But above all else, Kara remembered him bursting with pride at being the first away – the tortoise who beat the two flashier hares to the finish line.

And much good it had done him.

Kara felt a prickling behind her eyes. She blinked furiously and looked to the ceiling. Desperate not to break, after all she knew better than most that tears wouldn’t bring him back.

It was Lucy who reached for her drink, raising it solemnly. “Ronnie Raymond.”

“Ronnie Raymond.”

That had been bad, but somehow the next week was worse. 

A week later, Reynolds and Davidson came back from 1915, Galipoli. They were Senior Historians and Kara didn’t know them all that well. Alex had always told her that they tended to keep themselves to themselves, but were nice enough.

Still, Kara went along and stood next to Alex and Lucy (Now on her own two feet) on the gantry. She was much quieter and thoughtful than she had been a week ago, and didn’t feel the same sense of excitement that she once thought would never go away.

This time however, there was no messing around.

Chief Luthor, had run into the pod, some unknown warning making its way into her ear. There was no knocking or pleasantries, she just went in and stayed in.

A minute later, Doctor Arias and two medics flew down the hangar and went in.

And again, stayed in.

Thirty minutes later they were still in there.

“No,” said Alex softly. “No, no, no, not again.”

“They’re not clearing the hangar.” Lucy whispered, almost breathlessly. “It might not be too bad.”

It was.

It took another twenty minutes for Captain Lance and Vasquez to come in and clear the hangar.

Alex and Lucy were a lot more reluctant to leave than Kara was. Kara had that sick to the stomach feeling, and was desperate to postpone the knowledge she knew was coming.

She grabbed Alex by the hand and tugged, eventually she fell into step beside her.

Both Doctor Arias and Chief Luthor found them much later, once again around a table in the bar.

“Davidson’s dead.” Doctor Arias stood before them, trying to make eye contact with everyone all at once.

The silence that met her words was one of terrifying acceptance. The 3 of them had been joined by Mike. Then James. Then Winn. They’d sat there for hours, mulling over every possible scenario, each one came back to death. Maybe it was inevitable, maybe it was expected, but it certainly wasn’t a surprise to have it confirmed.

“It was an accident. He fell under a horse in the chaos, he was trampled.”

It was only later they found out that he’d died in Reynold’s arms. When the Chief had entered the pod, it was to find Reynolds holding him with silent tears pouring down his cheeks, when they tried to move him, he’d lost control, yelling and crying. They tried to sedate him, but he fought that off easily.

Eventually, everyone else had cleared out from the pod, and Doctor Arias and the Chief sat with him and Davidson for nearly two hours before they were able to get them both out quiet.

It was nearing final call in the bar when Kara broke the silence.

“Doctor Arias. Are we ever going to see Reynolds again?”

She just looked up at Kara, her eyes displaying a shocking amount of emotion for the normally stoic woman.

“She’s taken care of.”

The tone was final and Kara knew to leave it alone.

“Oh and Miss Danvers. Call me Sam.”

Kara simply raised her glass with a nod and allowed the burn in her throat to replace the prickling behind her eyes.

 

* * *

 

Kara and Mike were both a lot quieter for days after Davidson’s death. But St Deo’s continued on around them, and after a while, so did they.

Kara was struggling with the grief, her and Alex had spoken at length, and often well into the early hours of the morning. Alex had only known one death in her time, and suddenly two in two weeks. One of which she felt directly responsible for. It was safe to say the food store hadn’t ordered enough comfort food for the Danvers sisters that month.

It wasn’t until after they had both attended the memorial service and Ronnie and Davidson’s names went up on the Board of Honour did Kara feel ready to move on.

So, there they were; four full time historians (and one part time) in an organisation built for twelve.

Under normal circumstances, Kara and Mike would undergo a series of small, unimportant standard jumps to build experience and work any anxious energies out of their systems.

On the board in the History Office there were two jumps pinned in the wall. Roman Gaul was scheduled as was a jump to eleventh-century London to watch the foundations being laid for Westminster Abbey.

Technically, Kara and Mike should have been supervised by a Senior Historian except there weren’t’ any left. Alex and Lucy were still a few jumps each short of qualifying for the position, but they were anticipating a joint call any day.

With Lucy still a 10km run and one fully fledged medical certificate away from jumping again, it was Alex and James who would be sharing babysitting duties. And in the spirit of fairness, they’d drawn names out of a hat. (It was a very empty hat)

The results of said lonely name draw meant that Alex and Mike would disappear to Gaul and James and Kara got Westminster Abbey.

On the day of the jump, Alex found Kara loitering outside Hawking.

“You best come back in one piece, Kar.” Alex had whispered into her hair.

“I promise.”

“Because I swear to god, I’ll come back in time, string you up so hard that you’re still feeling it twenty years from now.”

“I mean, pretty sure there’s rules against that, but I take your point.” Kara grinned.

“I love you. I’ll have the pizza on stand-by.”

James walked past the hugging siblings and gave Kara a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

“I’ll see you inside.” He nodded towards the hangar.

“Make it double cheese, mushrooms, pepperoni – OH – and sweetcorn.”

“Sure thing ya weirdo.” Alex pushed her towards Hawking.

The Chief stood at the entrance to the pod, smiling slightly.

“I’ll trade you coffee for a story of grand adventure?”

“I feel like you’re getting a bad deal there Chief.” Kara said, leaning nonchalantly against the pod. Trying desperately not to look at how the Chief’s jumpsuit was undone considerably more than usual.

“Never Miss Danvers. But. You might even get a donut if you manage to keep yourself out of trouble.”

“How can I – um – refuse an offer like that.” Kara stuttered. She suddenly had the image of the Chief licking sugar of her lips. Kara’s throat all but closed up.

Suddenly the door to the pod opened and if James hadn’t been stood on the other side Kara would have ended up face down on the floor.

“Sorry to interrupt ladies, but time doesn’t’ wait for snack breaks.”

This time it was Lena’s turn to splutter indignantly as she walked away.

Entering the pod, James sat down in his chair, put his feet up and declared Kara in charge.

“After you,” he said, “If you don’t get on with it soon, you won’t be back in time for coffee and donuts.”

Kara refrained from throwing him a punch and verified the co-ordinates. She crossed her fingers and initiated the jump.

They landed without even the slightest bump (she filed that away into the things to tell the Chief folder of her brain). Kara had been dreaming about materialising inside a mountain or at the bottom of the Thames for weeks, so she was beyond relieved.

With her heart still thumping, she checked the cameras and announced (In a voice that was totally not shaking) that it was safe to venture outside.

The main purpose of the jump was simply to confirm the co-ordinates for the Time Map, but James had taken pity on Kara and said it would be a crying shame not to take a look around. (A comment that got so many historians, past and present into incredible amounts of trouble.)

“Brilliant Kara, do you know the way?”

“Yes,” Kara said firmly.

“Well then, after you.” He stood back from the door and they discreetly exited the pod.

He hung back, whilst Kara took a couple of minutes to take it all in.

There were more stone buildings that she was expecting, but this was London, and Edward the Confessor’s England was peaceful and prosperous. Whilst there were some stone buildings, most of the surrounding buildings were still wood. Wood with let down fronts, that converted into table tops from which a variety of goods and services were being touted.

The noise. The noise was incredible. It appeared St Deo’s had learnt volume control from 11th century London because nobody seemed to be able to talk in anything less than a bellow.

A pungent woody smoke hung over everything. And there were plenty of people on the streets, and Kara could make out mops of light-coloured hair, similar to her own.

These were Saxons, for the most part and taller than she expected. She vaguely remembered one of her professors at NCU telling her that hair colour was not a reliable way to tell Saxon from Norman since the Normans were also descended from Northmen. Apparently, the most reliable method (or so her professor had insisted) was to look at people’s thighs.

As a rough guide, if the thighbone was longer than the shinbone, then you were Saxon. If it was the other way around you were Norman. Kara had Saxon legs and she peered around looking at others as they walked past.

“IS there a reason you’re staring at people’s legs?” he asked, a bemused expression on his face.

“I have Saxon legs.” She said with a shrug.

James just quirked a brow and shook his head good heartedly.

“Alex did try and warn me about you. Come on and try not to gawp.”

It was a sound piece of advice. Nothing makes you stand out more than looking like a tourist, foreigner or enemy spy; none of those were very good looks for inoffensive historians looking for a quiet life.

So, Kara led James around muddy London, praying to god that if they followed the crowd they’d find the abbey. Luckily they found it pretty easily, even Kara couldn’t have missed it.

The everlasting chink-chink of metal tools on stone could be heard over even the loudest of market traders. Gangs of masons swarmed over the site and Kara was silently stunned at the height of the walls. She’d been here hundreds of years in the future, and to see it like this, in it’s unfinished state was breath-taking.

They had no heavy lifting gear per say (Kara half expected to see a yellow JCB rolling around a corner). All they had was blocks, tackles, ropes, man power and occasionally horse power. But work was going at speed.

Kara looked around eagerly as if she might see Edward the Confessor himself. He would be buried here in 1066, only a week after the abbey had been consecrated. The first (and last) English King to be buried there.

She drew brief sketches of the mason’s marks and James tried to identify the gangs they belonged to. She moved on to sketching the shape of the walls as they wandered around the site as they wanted.

_Thank the god of historians that Health and Safety was still hundreds of years and a risk assessment away_. _Pam would have a field day._

James paused a moment. “I need a bathroom break.”

Apparently 11th century London had yet to find the distinct pleasures of a port-a-potty so James eased himself between to pieces of lumber.

“Come on.”

“What?” Kara balked.

“I’m not letting you out of my sight on this trip.”=

“I’m not watching you pee.”

“Close your eyes.”

“I’m not listening either.”

“Hum.”

Kara turned her back to him and began to hum Oops I did it again.

“Anything but that.”

But Kara wasn’t listening. She was watching two men walking behind another man as he skirted around the site.

They both had their hands in their belts and their body language was making it all to clear what their intentions were.

Kara took a step forward so she could better see what was happening, and then everything happened all at once.

“Where are you going?” James asked.

Someone shouted a warning nearby. Kara couldn’t make out the words, but the alarm and urgency were very clear.  

And then suddenly, it got dark.

Kara didn’t think at all. She didn’t know what made her do it. She ran forwards two paces and crashed hard into James, her momentum pushing them back another three or four steps.

In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t far. But it was far enough for them not to be under the frighteningly heavy block of stone that thudded into the soft mud nearby.

They were sprawled on the ground, Kara desperately trying to catch up with events. For Kara it all happened so fast that it was more puzzled than scared.

She could hear people approaching and several men ran around the pile, shouting anxiously.

Kara had a brief image of her feet stuck out from under a rock Wicked Witch of the East style, before a series of laughs and jeers brought her back.

They were both lying tangled up on the floor, James (who had been mid toilet break) exposed to the world.

Naturally, they drew all the wrong conclusion, and the pair were subject to a number of builders’ witticisms.

_Apparently, vulgarity is understandable in any language._

After they’d gotten their fill, they wandered off again.

_No one need my signature for the health and safety report then._

_No one._

_Fine._

As though answering her own sarcasm, insider Kara’s head she heard Doctor J’onzz say “ _How difficult is it to cause a ten-ton block to drop on a potentially threatening historian…?_ ”

Kara’s stomach suddenly went cold and she unwound her skirts and struggled to her feet.

“You peed on me!” Kara said indignantly, trying to hide the sickness that had settled in her throat.

“I peed on me too.” James said struggling to his feet. “Are you OK?”

“Yup. Totally fine.”

“Are you sure?”

There was an underlying anxiety to his voice that made Kara’s chest hurt a bit.

“Well, I’m all wet if that’s what you mean.” Kara shook out her skirts. “That is just – “

James put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks. “What was that all about?”

“No idea. Maybe it was an accident. They do happen. Maybe not everything is to do with us?”

James looked thoughtful.

“Where were you going?”

Then Kara remembered. “Two men, following another man. I didn’t like the look of them.”

“Kara!”

“I wasn’t going to do anything, I promise. I just wanted to see a bit better.” She took a deep shuddering breath. “Do you really think – ?”

Kara was aware of how hard her heart was thumping in her chest. That had been a close call. One minute everything was fine and the next minute, giant rocks were falling from the sky.

James’ brow unfurrowed and he looked upwards instead. “Where did it come from?”

There was no scaffolding, builders hanging over the edge wolf whistling or reading a newspaper. Just ropes criss-crossing against the grey sky.

Then James peered thoughtfully across the site.

“I wonder – “

“What?”

“Well, I wonder if whatever was going to happen to that man – had to happen. A random but key historical event. Minor, but essential. And if you were about to interfere, then we got off very lightly. Very. Very lightly.”

“What kind of key event?”

“It could be anything really. What I he’s attacked and someone saves him, and then eh goes on to father children whose descendants are important? Or he’s attacked and killed. He might have gone on to do something unspeakably evil. But now he won’t. Because he’s dead.”

Kara’s heart had picked up speed as the implications were becoming clear to her.

“I can’t believe we’re not dead.”

“Me too,” James said, rubbing a hand over his head. “Maybe history’s in a good mood today.”

“Maybe we’re the good guys.” Kara shrugged, aiming for a joke, but there was a strange pause between then. “

“Come on. Let’s take the hint and get out of here.”

Together they edged their way past the block and out of the lumber, Kara shivered slightly as she saw the full size of it.

“Coffee?” James asked, lightly nudging her In the right direction.

“Um – James?” Kara said, a blush in her cheeks.

“Yeah?”

“You should – um – probably, pop yourself away first.”

James swore, turned her back to her and struggled to right himself as quickly as possible.

He didn’t speak another word the whole way back to the pod, and Kara tried desperately to look everywhere but at him.

When they got back to the pod, Kara wrote up the logs, did the FOD search outside and the POD plod inside, tidied up, and made James a coffee.

She’d wait for hers from the Chief.

James stretched, siled, checked around without seeming to and gratefully accepted the coffee.

“Nicely done Kara.” He grinned. “Return jump all in?”

“Ready when you are.”

“Well, there’s no rush is there?” he said, settling back in his seat, apparently exhausted by his afternoon’s exertions and smiled at her again.

Kara just shook her head, twiddling her thumbs.

James, noticing the distinct lack of coffee in her hands grinned widely.

“Unless, you’ve got a date with a certain CTO.”

Kara spluttered. Words failing her.

“I – “

“Uh – “

“No – “

“What?”

James just sipped his coffee.

 

* * *

 

The first face Kara saw upon their return was the Chief’s waiting with a cup of coffee in each hand. The second face was Alex’s. Then she was lost in the crowd of people patting her on the back for a job well done.

Eventually she fought her way through the well-wishers, getting a tight hug from her sister, it was Alex who nudged her in the direction of the Chief. It was five minutes later when she sat to the Chief on the steps to the gantry.

“So.” Lena started. “I believe I was promised a story of great adventure.”

Kara smirked into her coffee.

“Well. Me and James rolled around in the mud for a bit, started of a whole string of sex jokes in the early 11th century and made it home in time for tea.”

Lena choked.

“I’m sorry – what?”

“Don’t worry, I won’t be subjected to Sam’s ‘ _have you exchanged bodily fluids_ ’ lecture. I’d rather spare myself the horrors.”

“Well – that’s um – good to know.” Lena’s face looked flush, and neither of them could make eye contact with each other.

“Seriously though. It was horrifying. James peed on me.” Kara suddenly looked down at her skirts and grimaced.

“I feel like there’s so much about you I will never understand Miss Danvers.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing.” Kara said, more to her feet than anything.

Lena moved an inch closer to her, despite knowing just what that stain on Kara’s skirt now was.

“I think Sam’s looking for you.” The Chief whispered.

Kara looked up sharply and indeed she could see Sam at the end of the hangar, straining her neck over the swarming techies.

“Save me.”

“Sorry Miss Danvers. Maybe next time.”

 

* * *

 

She didn’t save her after her next jump either. But she did provide the caffeine (after Sick Bay this time)

Kara’s next jump was with Lucy, who was desperate to prove that she was back in fighting form.

They jumped to back to witness a young Queen Victoria’s coronation procession. Neither of them saw anything beyond the broad back of the men in front of them. And more often than not they were looking at each other and rolling their eyes.

It was another month of minor jumps before Kara and Mike were released into history by themselves, where Kara finally ( _finally_ ) got to go to Shrewsbury.

If she was honest to herself, it didn’t live up to the hype by that point.

When they both returned, entirely unharmed, they ticked the final box in their files and their rank as historians was confirmed.

It was a _very_ messy night in the bar that evening.

Even Chief Luthor got involved, although her and Kara continued to just make eyes across the bar, before Winn dragged her back to the table with the promise of another karaoke classic.

A month later, Kara was given her first full blown assignment – not a test jump, not a scouting, a fully fledged assignment.

And it was World War One. The Somme. And what a bastard that would turn out to be.

 

* * *

 

Kara and Lucy were sitting in the corridor outside of their rooms. They’d grown sick of reading in the library after day 2, the bar by day 3, and the weather was in no way conducive to outside study. So here they sat.

Alex had her door propped open and was spinning around on her desk chair reading up on her own assignment.

“How comes you guys get to go to a French Chateau and I’m stuck researching the Boston sewer system?”

“Firstly, it’s a casualty clearing centre, we’re not going on a wine tasting tour.”

“Imagine the pastries though.” Kara said wistfully.

“Secondly, it was destroyed by gunfire. Hardly a 5 star resort.” Lucy scoffed.

Kara looked down at her note pad where she was bullet pointing the most important points from the brief.

  * _Enemy Fire or Friendly Fire???_
  * _Massive loss of life._
  * _Cover-up? (Morale and propaganda?)_



It was this last point that was most important. The anniversary of the event was rolling around, and controversy was swirling around it. NCU had asked St Deo’s to investigate, to help settle the debate.

Only, they didn’t have a precise date.

“Ah yes, the imminent destruction of your mission site. How did they get that one past Pam?” Alex asked, twirling her pen.

“Oh you know. _Hi Pam, we’re going into a War Zone, we’re sitting with a giant target on our heads and we’re not sure exactly when we’re going to get blown to bits, that cool with you?_ ”

Kara laughed nervously tapping her notebook, “According to this I don’t think getting blown to bits is our main concern.”

Lucy nodded her agreement.

“After the explosion, most of the chateau went up in flames. And super quickly too. Probably going to be more of a fire issue.”

Kara’s nervous tapping sped up and Alex wheeled herself closer to her open door and looked around at Kara.

Lucy had also stopped reading.

“You good Kar?” Alex asked.

“What? Oh yeah.” Kara looked up from where she’d been staring blankly at the wall.

“Sure?”

“Mm-hmm. Honestly guys I’m fine and I’m already talking to M’Gann. This is a non-issue.”

There was silence for a few minutes before Kara spoke again.

“Besides, we need to get this right. After Ronnie and Davidson.” Kara gulped. “We get, get the information, get the proof, get it right, and back in time for dinner.”

“Maybe not quite in time for Dinner.” Lucy quipped. “I mean, hopefully we’re closer to the five days before it happens rather than the three. I personally don’t want to think about Kara’s sugar-withdrawal.”

“I take great offense at that.”

“As your mission lead, I acknowledge your offense, and tell you to suck it up.”

“Hmph.” Kara pouted.

“What dates are you looking at anyway?” Alex asked, dutifully ignoring her sister.

“Records show everything is functioning at the beginning of October and by the 14th it had been destroyed. So, here’s hoping it’s just a nice and easy 5 days.”

“It was supposed to have been an accident right?” asked Alex.

“Possibly, at least that’s what the official reports say.”

“There’s going to be a lot of blame flying around after this one. Isn’t this one of those better not to know times?” Kara frowned deeply when she thought of the implications.

 Lucy shrugged. “Not our place to decide.”

“One last question.” Kara stood up and stretched. “How do we know if it’s Allied guns that blow us up or theirs?”

Lucy and Alex just shrugged.

 

* * *

 

Kara and Lucy were going in as nurses, with Mike as an orderly (and ambulance driver).

Because stand awkwardly in a corner in a causality clearing site probably wasn’t going to fly, they were both sent on an intense and extensive field medic course, based on the treatments of the time.

They both spent three weeks seconded to a nearby army hospital. One week in theatre, one week on the wards, and one week in A&E, which was mostly burns, fractures, crush injuries, drunken brawls.

**Kara [15:10]**

ALEX!

**Kara [15:15]**

ALEX!

**Alex [15:17]**

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

**Kara [15:18]**

I’ve seen things today, I can never ever unsee.

**Alex [15:18]**

Shit.

Kar, you ok?

I can come to you. You’re only an hour away.

**Kara [15:19]**

I know biology. And I know women have been doing this throughout history perfectly fine.

BUT THAT IS NOT NATURAL.

HOW.

HOW.

HOW.

**Alex [15:22]**

Are you talking about straight sex, or childbirth.

Because, both to be fair.

**Kara [15:21]**

ALEX!

 

* * *

 

After that, everything felt like a standard jump. They were kitted out with everything they might need, papers, experience, high energy chocolate bars. (If the Chief made sure there was an extra box tucked into the pod, Kara wasn’t going to tell anyone)

They jumped early one Sunday morning, Lucy and Chief Luthor carrying out the final checks. Winn, fussing around the outside.

Eventually the pod was cleared, and Mike and Kara went to join Lucy inside.

“Take care,” was all the Chief said, making eye contact with Kara as the door closed between them.

The landing was smooth as silk and Kara activated the external cameras immediately. Despite it being early afternoon, it was dark and dreary, the rain was coming down hard and people were scurrying around, holding things over their heads trying to stay dry.

The plus point of that was that no one was paying their little corner any mind.

They debated for a few moments whether they should make the pod more discreet now and risk showing up covered in mud and dirt or just report straight away and come back later.

Eventually they settled on the former. Mike had been whisked away towards the stables, whilst Lucy and Kara had been pointed to the main building.

The Matron in charge of the clearing centre scarcely looked at their carefully forged papers before deploying them. Kara almost felt sorry for Professor Hunter and Gideon as they’d spent an awfully long time on them. (It was all in the detail – lest they be shot as enemy spies)

The Matron sat behind her desk, stiff, starched and clearly unimpressed. Kara got the impression they were not up to her standards.

“Show me your hands.” She said abruptly. Kara thanked the high heavens that she always kept her nails clipped short. Kara held her outs out front and back. The matron stared. She sniffed.

Kara wasn’t sure what the problem was. Was it the burns that had healed and faded, or the fact that the only callouses she had were from holding a pencil.

_A couple of weeks here is sure to change that._

“Where are you from?” The Matron peered at the papers, “Lane?”

“I’m Danvers.” Kara said helpfully, and she got the look she’d gotten from every teacher at school and more recently Rhea herself.

_I don’t know why I bother._

“I’m Lane,” said Lucy, courageously drawing her fire. The Matron’s eyes snapped to her. Kara took the opportunity to hide her hands behind her back.

“Manchester.” Lucy said, broadening an accent that Kara didn’t know she could do so well and showing her hands without being asked.

_Show off_.

Kara’s English accent was passable, had a slight west country twang and she’d been perfecting it in front of the mirror for the last month.

Eventually the Matron grew sick of passing judgement and handed them a list of rules and regulations.

And there were a lot of them.

_How many have I already broken?_

Once dismissed they stepped outside. Kara breathed deeply. The smell was distinctive. Wood smoke and horses.

_Will I ever go anywhere that doesn’t’ smell of horses. Or toilets._

The latrine smell wafted over where they were stood despite them being in the next courtyard over. And the hospital stink was everywhere; even outside in what they’d wrongfully assumed would be fresh air.

Kara took the chance to look around. The shabby old chateau had either been disused for some time or was in very bad condition to begin with. Windows were boarded up, plaster was falling away, tiles missing from the roof.

_Looks about the same as St Deo’s to be fair to it_.

But still, Kara eyed it nervously. They’d never been put in such obvious danger before. Her heart was racing in the same way it had been on her first jump. But each jump was different; every jump had it’s own set of problems and its own set of terrors.

If Kara dared make a list, it was cold, there was mud everywhere. Too many people; too many vehicles; to many horses; too much rain. The planks they’d laid down for people to walk on and drive on were slowly disappearing into the slurping mud.

Over by the gates Kara spied a number of tents each varying in size and purpose, but no matter where she looked there were people scurrying. Everyone seemed busy and purposeful. And that was why they were here. They had a purpose, so they needed to get started.

Kara and Lucy were each handed their uniforms, told to change and get stuck in. A quick change and a hair pinning check and they were back out into the courtyard.

The first day disappeared into mud, sweat and blood. Kara kept trying to spy Mike, and she often saw him in the distance, or waving as he disappeared round a corner, but he was wise enough to be discreet.

When their first shift finally came to an end, Kara and Lucy were directed to a tiny room in the attic. It made Kara’s stomach churn with anxiety being so far away from the pod. But they would be bed-checked every evening by a Senior Sister, so there was no choice in the matter. It was cold and damp and clearly never saw sunlight.

“Top or tail?” Kara asked Lucy as she stared at their tiny shared bed.

“Big spoon or little spoon?” Lucy waggled her eyebrows and Kara just scoffed and threw the single cover they had at her head.

Much to Kara’s upset they couldn’t bring anything from the pod with them to make themselves comfortable as they would (most definitely) have to leave in a hurry.

Kara also couldn’t bring herself to be upset about lacking a blanket when she knew what was happening in the trenches, it didn’t’ seem right.

She also didn’t know where Mike was sleeping. She’d heard that a group of orderlies slept above the stables, so if he was with them, then Kara had absolutely nothing to complain about.

It was cold when they arrived, but It inexplicably, got colder. And wetter. The casualties poured in. And Kara was posted to the Reception Tent, to sort and prioritise.

She was good at it, but she hated it.

She’s not God. But she began to recognise death in a face, she knew when there was nothing she could do except to move on to the ones who could be saved. From the Reception Tent she directed men to the Resuscitation Tent where they’d be able to get warm and if they were lucky receive a transfusion. Mostly she just sent through to pre-op.

That was where Lucy was based, the Operation Tent. The final tent before patients would be moved to the wards in the main building, before a final transfer to a bigger hospital far behind the lines or even back in England.

Stretcher, after stretcher came through the Reception Tent, carried by Mike’s mates; orderlies that Kara could praise highly enough. She checked everyone’s labels and directed them accordingly. If sh was lucky she saw Mike in the flash at least once a night, and even if there was only time to share a glance and a nod, it was better than nothing.

Day after day fell into a pit of exhaustion. Before Kara knew it, they were well into the second week of October. The rain never stopped, and that meant there was heavy mud everywhere. And still the ambulances came, carrying men whose faces were clouded with pain.

Kara saw more limbs reduced to bloody stumps then she could ever hope to forget. A boy, no older that 16 was brought in holding his stomach in his hands. Another laid quietly with a gentle smile on his face, and it was only when Kara looked more closely did she notice that half of his head was gone.

As the deadline got closer, Kara’s struggle to sleep despite the exhaustion grew. Eventually Lucy and her took turns to keep watch in their room at night.

One of them would sleep while the other wound bandages or tried to read. Mostly they both just stared at the wall, trying to forget everything they’d seen.

They never undressed, partly so they were at a constant state of readiness, and also it was far to cold.

On one particularly cold night, well into the second week. Kara watched her breath frost in the cold air. She wound yards and yards of bandages by the light of a tiny candle on the floor by her feet. They’d sacrificed the thin blanket last week to place over the leaky window. Trying desperately to keep the light in and the cold out.

They’d arranged to meet Mike at least once a day going forwards, in order to reassure each other. They struggled to keep in regular contact but tried desperately to be aware of each other’s positions at all times.

In fact Kara was starting to feel like her head was on a swivel, after all this might not be here tomorrow. Kara kept imagining the whine of a shell, the crump fo an explosion – and then nothingness.

It was during one of these moments when she came running around a corner from the linen room and ran straight into someone.

Kara stumbled backwards and fell down. The person she’d ran into lifted the top layer of the blankets they were carrying and said. “Hi, it’s me!”

Mike struggled to help Kara to her feet.

“You ok?” Kara sked.

“Freezing. How you holding up?”

Kara was almost touched, he was never this thoughtful. “I’m OK. We’re nearly at the end.”

“Tonight, tomorrow ro the day after. What you thinking?”

“I have zero thoughts, there hasn’t been much shelling from the front, so maybe we’ve entered a bit of a lull.”

“Whatever you do, don’t relax. It could happen at any time.” Suddenly a look of urgency crossed his face. “I’ve gotta run, if we get through the night I’ll see you and Lucy tomorrow, just outside here. BU the altrines. We’ll have a catch up and work out what to do next.”

“By the latrines?” Kara grimaced.

“It’s the romance in my soul.”

It was by some great luck that all three of them were able to sneak away to meet the next day.

Mike was already there, waiting for them. Kara could see the pod in the distance, over by the stables. Looking entirely anonymous under bits of rusting metal and carefully placed pieces of rotting wood.

They stood out of the rain and discussed what to do next.

“It’s going to be tonight or tomorrow,” Said Lucy. “Mike, are you working tonight?”

“Not if it keeps raining. We keep beaching ambulances and can’t afford to loose another one.”

Lucy nodded and turned to Kara. “Keep sharp Kara. You’ll have the farthest to go from the Reception tent to the pod. At the first sign of anything dodgy, go straight back to the pod and get the cameras activated. Stay out of trouble.”

Lucy raised an eyebrow, as if challenging whatever was about to come from Kara’s mouth. “You too Matthews. We’re here to investigate. There’s no way I’m going back without knowing what happens here, and we can’t do that if we’re dead. Tell me you both understand.”

Kara and Mike both nodded, the seriousness in her tone beyond anything they’d heard before.

“I mean it. Any sign of heroics, I’ll kick your arses from here to Doctor J’onzz’s office, pausing only for you to pick up your severance check. Is that totally, clearly and desperately understood.”

They both nodded again.

Kara shivered under her cape and pulled it more tightly around her shoulders. Around the corner, a whistle sounded and voices were raised.

Engines turned over, coughing in the damp.

“That’s me,” said Mike. “Shit. Iw as supposed to stock with extra blankets.” He looked over his shoulder and back at Kara. “Kara, could you…”

“Sure, you go ahead, I’ll bring them too you. How many?”

“Three should do it. Thanks a lot.” And then eh was gone, slipping in the mud in his haste.

“That’s me off too.” Said Lucy. “I’ll meet you after shift. I think we should stick together as much as possible now.”

“Plan. Stay safe Luce.”

Lucy disappeared the same way as Mike and Kara re-entered the building. She hurried along the corridor, back to the linen room she’d collided with Mike in yesterday.

She ignored the first two doors. The blankets were in number three.

She reached of the door handle and pulled the heavy, solid wood door.

Kara had just enough time to register the hot door handle before she was blown backwards and sideways as the door came crashing down on top of her.

She lay stunned, only slowly becoming aware of flames licking around the doorframe.

The roaring that she thought was in her own head turned out to be the fireball in the linen room.

It was hot.

_I’ve got to get up_.

_Get up Kara._

_GET UP!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you so much for giving this a shot. Thanks for reading and commenting.   
> I love this universe and I love these characters. 
> 
> Keep coming back, commenting, sending messages etc etc, I am here for each and every one of them!
> 
> I say this. I'm trying to move flat, go to London Pride and run a hate crime stall at another Pride... so if these next few weeks don't kill me - I'll see you all next Sunday!
> 
> (P.S you can come yell on tumblr at super-super-gay)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disaster strikes in 1916.

_Get up Kara. Get up!_

She had to get up. She had to move. If she stayed here –

Kara wriggled desperately. The door felt like it weighed three times as much as her, and suddenly she was grateful for all the training Captain Lance made her do.

She gritted her teeth and pushed upwards with her legs, the door shifting just enough for her to pull herself out from underneath it.

Flames ran along the ceiling above her but she couldn’t see anything for the smoke. The whole corridor was filled with it, billowing out from the store cupboard.

This was the major catastrophe. Suddenly and without any warning. This was it.

Kara struggled to pull herself together, she knew from the records that more people were going to lose their lives here today than survived. And there wasn’t anything she could do about it.

 _Fuck that_.

She vaguely remembered something her father once said to her. _There is always something you can do Kara. You just have to be brave enough._

Kara pulled her cape over her head, hitched up her skirt and crawled down the corridor.

 _Just get to the door_.

_Just –_

She coughed and struggled to take another breath. She was trying to keep her head low to avoid the smoke, but look upwards enough to find the hand bell that hung by every door.

Her head collided with the door frame sending her sprawling to one side.

 _That’s one way to find the door I suppose_.

Kara took a deep and difficult breath and groped her way up the door frame, desperately hoping to feel the smooth metal beneath her fingertips.

_BINGO!_

She grasped the door handle and nearly flung herself backwards with the pain in her palm.

The brass handle had been heated up by the flames, her hand spasmed into a tight hold as she finally opened the door. Desperately trying to ignore the increasing roar behind her, Kara slipped through.

Kara rubbed her eyes with her none injured hand, they were streaming from the smoke, but there was no one to be seen. It was the middle of the day. Everyone had better places to be than loitering around in linen closets.

She took as deep a breath as she could manage, sucking in a great lungful of cold, wet (and wonderful) air. She coughed a little, spat a lot and eventually croaked. “Fire! Fire! Fire!”

Kara was bent nearly double, bracing herself on one knee with her injured hand, and frantically ringing the hand bell as loudly as she could.

For what felt like the longest time, nothing happened. And then, all around her, doors crashed open and people ran in every conceivable direction.

Men sprinted towards horses, stirrup pumps and buckets. Huge red-orange flames began to engulf the old buildings; and the rain (which for once, might have done some good) had stopped, the sun was shining, bathing the whole tragedy in warm October sunshine.

It was absolute chaos. Whistles blared obnoxiously, shouts could be heard and over all the din, a hand-cranked siren did more ensure people couldn’t hear their orders than it helped.

Kara didn’t know what to do. Men ran with buckets, no one thought to form a chain. Water was slopping everywhere, people fell in the mud and anyone behind tripped over them. Kara could see three orderlies trying to pull out a fire wagon but there weren’t enough of them to move it through the mud. She saw their mouths moving, but no one could hear their shouts for help.

People flew out of doors into the courtyard, but once they were there, they had no idea where to go. Or if they did, it had been forgotten in the panic.

Kara stood. Chaos erupting around her and stared at the flames. She could see terrified faces at the windows, hands beating at the glass panes. She wondered if that is what she had looked like all those years ago, hands pounding from the inside, screaming for her parents, desperate to escape the flames and the smoke.

A man was hanging out of a window; trying to lower himself to the floor and lost his grip, falling heavily to the ground. Out of the corner of her eye Kara saw men jumping, some got up, some remained where they’d fallen.

Kara could feel her chest tightening, whether by smoke or panic, she didn’t know. But above it all, she heard the high note of a bugle cut through the racket. Everyone’s heads turned. A young major was stood on the back of a cart clearly demanding attention.

“To the main gates. Get the wounded to the main gates. Away from the buildings, those walls are going to come down.”

As if by magic a number of non-commissioned officers appeared, and began to physically push people in the right direction.

Kara saw a blind man, barefoot, stumbling around in the mud wearing only his pyjamas. His face was badly burned and his dressing had come away and was trailing behind him.

He was shouting for help, his arms stretched out, struggling to find purchase on the unsteady ground.

_Screw the big picture._

_I’m a little person. He’s a little person. Just be brave enough. Just be brave enough._

She repeated that mantra in her head as she stepped forwards and took his hand.

“Now then, soldier, you just come with me.” She said gently, placing his hand on her shoulder. They fought their way through the courtyard, Kara took a moment to be thankful that at least everyone was panicking in the same direction.

She found another young man, on his knees, struggling to stand. Kara reached out a hand. “Come on, up you get. Can you walk?”

“A little,” was his reply, barely audible through his chattering teeth. “I can’t’ go fast”

With that the three of them (and one more they picked up on the way) carefully picked their way towards the main drive, and a mud-covered ambulance drew up.

One of the orderlies Kara recognised as one of Mike’s friends jumped down.

“Get them in the back, miss. Quick as you can.”

Together they yanked open the doors and willing hands helped heave the injured men into the back.

“You too!” he shouted.

“NO!” Kara yelled back. “Get this lot to the main gates, I’ll go back for stragglers.”

“You don’t want to do that, miss. That whole section’s going to collapse.”

“I have to,” she said desperately. The pod was there. She had to get back. “GO! Get these men to safety and then come back for more.” Kara turned and ran before he had a chance to argue.

The courtyard was full of smoke, ghostly figures emerged and disappeared like ghosts. Kara could see orange and red flickers as the flames rose higher. The yells that surrounded her seemed more purposeful, two columns of men filed out towards the gates. Some carried on makeshift stretchers or slung over shoulders. The initial panic was over, people were helping each other.

Kara ran over to the major who was directing the evacuation.

“Sir, there’s at least one ambulance on its way here. They can take the most seriously wounded if we can get them out altogether.”

He nodded. “Stand here. I’ll make you our collection point.” Kara nodded, and then shuffled awkwardly, unsure where exactly she should stand.

In hardly any time at all, Kara was surrounded by half a dozen man, sitting or lying in the mud, with more of them on the way. At some point, a sergeant handed Kara a whistle.

“Keep blowing, miss. Let them know where you are.”

So she did. She blew, and blew, turning in a circle, praying people would find her. People gathered around her. Two stretcher bearers, covered in soot and mud brought a man up to her. She crouched down and felt for a pulse.

He was already dead. Kara pulled the blanket that had been draped over him in haste over his head. When the ambulance returned. He was left behind in the mud.

Kara was helping men into the ambulance, when the major showed up again.

He clambered in after the last man and turned to Kara, reaching out a hand to her.

“On you get nurse. That’s an order.”

Kara knew she couldn’t go with him, and if she ran back to the courtyard, he was sure to come after her. So instead, she said to him. “Yes, sir. I’ll go in front, with the driver.”

She slammed the doors and slapped the side of the truck hard before turning back into the smoke.

Two sides of the building were well ablaze now, and Kara could see that the east wall was going ot come down any minute. The heat hurt her face. Terrible noises were coming from stables. There was no chance of getting the horses out, none at all. They screamed in fear and Kara could hear them kicking against the partitions in their desperation to get out. The building was almost engulfed in flames, and suddenly Kara realised there was nothing she could do.

So she ran.

As the pod came into view out o the smoke, she could see there was someone inside. The scraps they had hidden it under had been kicked aside, exposing the door. Kara picked up her skirts and really ran for it. She heard a shout behind her.

“Kara!”

 _Thank god!_ It was Lucy. Her hair hung down and she was bleeding from a number of places, smeared black with smoke and soot.

Kara reached out and took her hand, pulling each other forwards.

Mike had the door open, ready. They flew through the door and stumbled to the floor gasping.

Kara rolled onto her back and through the door she saw the east wall sway, lean at an impossible angle and come crashing down.

Mike slammed the door closed. And suddenly there was silence.

The noise of the roaring flames was gone, screaming horses, the sounds of people burning alive all gone.

Mike was white-faced.

“Kara? Kara, thank god. I can’t believe it. I thought you were dead. Why aren’t you dead?”

Kara just shook her head, resting it against the back of the pod as he passed her some water.

“Someone told me it started in the store cupboards and I knew that’s where you were. I can’t believe you got out alive.”

“Hey,” Lucy said sourly. “I’m alive too.” Kara gave her the water, and watched as it dribbled out of the corners of her mouth slightly in her haste.

Kara watched the screens for the longest time. Mike had ensured all the cameras were working. Kara’s eyes flickered with the flames, she could feel the heat on her face as though it was right in front of her. Could feel the tendrils of smoke clutching around her throat.

Kara didn’t even see Lucy get to her feet and crouch down in front of her.

“Come on Kara, on your feet. Let’s have a look at you.”

Kara blinked slowly. “I’m fine.” She said. _I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m –_

She clambered to her feet.

“Mike, get the first aid kit.” Lucy turned back to Kara, sitting on the chair next to her. “So what hurts the most?”

“Um – “ Kara paused to take stock of just what her body was telling her.

“The door fell on my head, so I think I’ve got an egg. Swallowed my body weight in smoke, my chest hurts and I think I’ve burnt my hands.” _Again._ “On a more serious note. I think I broke my nail.”

Lucy smirked, as she began pulling things out of the kit.

Kara glanced at her hands as Lucy cradled them. She couldn’t even see the original scars on them anymore. Lucy shook the medical plastic can vigorously and gently sprayed a coating over Kara’s hands. The cooling effect was instantaneous and Kara sighed in calming relief.

“I’m gonna have to rip your uniform to get to that cut.” Kara said. Gingerly picking up some bandages from the kit.

Lucy shrugged, and Kara tore the sleeve of her uniform. The gash was small but deep. Kara wrapped her arm, then a wound on her leg and finally slapped a dressing on her forehead.

“Voila!” Kara said proudly. “That should hold us together for a while.” They both turned to look at Mike, who was studying the screens intently.

“How about you? What needs dressed, cleaned or prodded.” Kara asked, waving a bandage around.

He split the screen to show all four cameras, and leaned in closely.

“What?” He asked not looking away. “Oh, I’m fine, thanks.”

Lucy looked him up and down. “You’re not hurt at all? How did you manage that?”

“What?” He finally dragged his eyes away from the screen.

“You’re clean.” Kara asked, with a brow furrowed. She looked down at her own uniform and could discern white from blue from red.

Lucy clearly had the same thought. “Look at the two of us. How did you manage that?”

“I was with the other drivers when the alarm went off. We were dispatched. I waited til no one was looking and then got back to the pod.” 

“You ran?”

“Yes, Kara, I ran. I kept an eye out for you guys on the way, but clearly i missed you. SO I got inside, the cameras were already rolling automatically, so I got the best angles and waited for you two.”

You could have heard their heartbeats the pod was so quiet.

Mike was still staring at the screens when he became aware of the silence. “As per your instructions.”

Still the silence stretched on.

“What?” he said, his hackles going up. “You said, in no uncertain terms. “ _NO heroic or I’ll kick you arses_.” Etc. etc.” He was pointing his finger at Lucy, who was staring at him like he’d flashed a red rag to a bull.

“I came straight to the pod, as instructed by my mission controller. That’s you Miss Lane, and got on with our mission, which according to our parameters is to investigate and record.”

He was getting over-defensive and bordering on belligerent. Behind Lucy, Kara was making _Shut up, shut up!_ Signs to him, but he couldn’t or wouldn’t pay attention to them.

He finished by saying, “So what’s your problem, then.”

Lucy stood up and took a long step forward, and seized his hand, his finger still pointing right at her.

“Look at these hands. Did you even stop to pick anyone out of the mud? Or did you just step right over them? Or did you actually knock them down in your mad dash to safety?”

The issue was they were all feeling angry, guilty and defensive. Mike had done to little, and he knew it. Kara and Lucy had both done too much, and they knew it too. Which left Lucy and Mike glaring at each other, each breathing heavily. And if Kara was honest, she’d put all her life earnings on Lucy winning.

It was with that (slightly horrifying) thought that had Kara risking life and limb and stepping between the two of them.

“Guys!” She yelled. “Not now. Mike, go and check the disks are recording.” He looked like he was about to argue.

“No. Now please.”

HE stepped back and muttered something, and that was the spark. Lucy strode forward and pushed his shoulder. “What did you say?”

“He didn’t say anything,” Kara said, physically getting between them again. “HE’s upset. We both are, its’ our first big assignment. It’s probably the first time he’s seen anyone die – “ Kara’s admission that this wasn’t hers was left in the air. “And the noises from the horses didn’t help.”

It didn’t work. Kara might as well have been yelling at a wall. Lucy’s eyes had narrowed.

“Yes, that’s a point.” A shiver ran down Kara’s spine when she saw Lucy’s resolve set in. She’d found the final nail in the coffin.

“From what you said when we got here, you thought your partner was dead. Good to know you’re sitting here safely when you think she’s burned to death in an explosion; especially since you sent her there in the first place. You really are a total waste of fucking space, Matthews.”

_Oh. Shit._

There was no going back now. Something ugly flashed in his eyes and they squared up to each other.  Lucy was at a significant height disadvantage but she held his gaze none the less.

It was a very, _very_ long moment and then his eyes slid sideways to Kara’s, and guilt was written all over his face. He pulled himself together.

Ignoring Lucy, he turned to Kara and said, shakily. “Kara, I’m sorry. I never thought for a moment you could still be alive. If I’d thought there was the slightest chance I’d have torn the building don myself to get to you. I’m sorry.”

Kara’s heart was thumping heavily, but she nodded to him and turned away.

“No, Kara. Really, I’m sorry. Please don’t look like that. It’s not true. Don’t listen to her.”

Kara just swallowed and nodded again. Lucy said in a quiet voice. “Let it go, Matthews.” There was a nasty little silence and Kara wondered if all assignments were going to end like this.

Mike took a long breath. “Let’s go.”

Lucy drew herself up again. “Stand away from those controls, mister. I call the shots here. You see to your partner.”

Kara wobbled on her feet, her stomach had dropped and suddenly the world felt like it had tilted upside down.

She opened her mouth to say, “I really don’t feel so good,” and instead, she threw up violently down his front. He was covered in it.

There was another silence and then Lucy grinned wickedly and said, “Not so clean now, are you?”

Kara sat heavily on the chair, trying really hard not to laugh and risk vomiting again.

Lucy initiated the jump, and they landed with the gentlest bump. The blue lights of decon lit up the pod and then Mike bolted, he left and didn’t look back.

Kara sat, with her head between her knees. Her chest wheezing with every breath and her stomach still threatening to rebel.

It was at that moment she realised just why St Deo’s was so tight on the not interacting with contemporary’s thing. They were supposed to be there to observe, document and record. Not to get involved. It wasn’t only the dangers of accidently changing history, but the emotional toll as well.

How many people had she see die today. How many people had died without anyone knowing about it. The matron? The blind man? Kara’s job was to watch events unfold. To record. To document. To observe, stand apart. And above all else. Not interfere.

Kara still hadn’t moved. That revelation hadn’t shocked her per say, but then another thought struck her.

 _You don’t walk away from a blind man struggling in the mud_. _You should. But you don’t_.

And neither her or Lucy had. Ronnie hadn’t either. But Mike had. Did that make him a better or worse historian than Kara? Or a better or worse person?

The thoughts were flashing through Kara’s mind faster than she could process them. Was the emotional price to pay for getting involved greater or worse than standing aside and doing nothing?

Thankfully, Lucy interrupted. “We should probably make a move,” she said. “Before Alex breaks the door down.”

Kara sighed. She could happily sit there forever, between two worlds. The past behind them and not yet in the present long enough to get into any real trouble.

No sooner were her words spoken than there was a gentle tap on the door.

“It’s Lena. Are you OK in there?”

“We’ll be out in a minute.” Shouted Lucy, in her best ‘brush off’ voice and after a long pause, it opened and Chief Luthor and Winn stood in the doorway.

“Don’t come in,” said Lucy.

Lena looked at Kara with a frown, she jerked as if to move forwards and then caught herself.

“It’s not personal,” said Kara, looking up from her knee. “We stink a bit.”

Winn stepped forwards. “If it’s your smell you’re worried about, it’s OK.” He picked up her bag. Lucy just rolled her eyes.

“Come on, let’s get you out of here, it is ripe.”

Lucy struggled to her feet, she moved like an old woman, hobbling out with an arm over Winn’s shoulder.

The Chief smiled at her. “Your turn.”

Kara reached for her bag, but Lena had already picked it up. Kara looked at her burned hands, her stiff and red fingers. Now all the adrenaline had well and truly left her she highly doubted she had the strength to put one foot in front of the other.

“Lean on me,” the Chief said, and just once, Kara allowed herself to do so.

Kara blinked blearily in the bright light of the hangar, Alex was nervously pacing, chewing on her fingernail.

“Is that sick?” Alex grimaced, pausing slightly in her motions to give her sister a hug.

Kara just nodded and Alex came around and pulled Kara’s free arm over her shoulder.

“I’m never letting you out of my sight. Ever, ever again.” Alex chastises.

“Right now, I am totally OK with that.”

 

* * *

 

“Concussion, burns, stitches, and a nasty case of smoke inhalation.” Sam flipped through the pages of Kara’s chart.

“You’re here for the next few days.” She held a finger up anticipating Kara’s response.

Kara shut her mouth from where she’d been about to protest.

“Oxygen for the next 12 hours and we’ll see how it goes. In the meantime, you and Miss Lane are going to sit here, and take whatever TLC is thrown at you. Or so help me – “

Chief Luthor interrupted, much to Kara’s relief.

“Alright Sam, I don’t think these two will be left alone long enough to get themselves into any trouble. Right?”

Lucy nodded and Kara just grinned.

The Chief followed Sam out of the room, muttering something about working on her bedside manner.

Alex was sat on the corner of Kara’s bed fiddling with the blanket.

“So Luce, would you like us to get a reserve sign made up?” Alex asked, Lucy went to pull the mask down from her face and instead just stuck her middle finger up at her.

“Rude.” Alex scoffed, James and Winn fell through the door each holding a stack of something.

“We bring gifts.”

“Donuts!”

Sam’s doctor senses must have been tingling, because before Kara could fling herself out of bed, Sam had come storming out of the office.

“Down Miss Danvers. Those donuts will keep for one more day. As it is, that mask will stay on your face, you will try to sleep. As will you Lucy. Alex will pretend she’s not anxious as all hell until Maggie comes and takes her to bed – “ a series of snorts around the room. “Lena will hover for the next few hours pretending she doesn’t want to come in and be sociable. And I -”

She paused for dramatic effect.

“I will be running around like a blue arse fly because none of you will listen to a word I say.”

She eyeballed them all one last time before returning to her office and a blushing Chief Luthor.

“So, I see she’s got everyone’s number.” James grinned.

“Please. The only number she wants is Lucy’s.” Kara wheezed.

“Screw you Danvers.”

“Are you taking my name in vain Lane?” Alex scoffed, pulling the mask back down Kara’s face.

Lucy just scowled, but nobody missed the way her eyes flicked towards the office.

 

* * *

 

As predicted, Maggie had come to drag Alex away 4 hours later. Kara and Lucy had been dropping off intermittently, Mike had been nowhere in sight.

Sam came to take them off the oxygen at 3am, and the lack of hissing didn’t make it any easier for either of them to sleep. Kara had a nurse waking her up every 2 hours anyway checking on the concussion, so it wasn’t like she was missing out on much

They lay next to each other staring at the ceiling in silence til the first signs of sunrise stream through the blinds.

Their first visitor in Sick Bay the next morning surprisingly wasn’t Alex, but the Chief. She brought with her a box of the various bits and pieces they’d left behind in the pod.

“All the videos have been uploaded, the only thing left is your reports. But that can wait until you’re both free.”

Both Kara and Lucy nodded.

“I’ve debriefed Matthews, and from what I can gather it wasn’t shellfire, but an explosion. Can either of you fill in the blanks?”

“Kara’s your gal for that one.” Said Lucy. “She was the one in the thick of it.” And to Kara’s surprise, Lucy pulled in an incomprehensible face and walked into Sam’s office.

“So,” Said the Chief, sitting down next to Kara. “How are you?”

“Absolutely fine,” Kara said with a small grin.  

The Chief regarded her warily. “Is it safe to be this close? I hear you’ve developed our own defence mechanism.”

Kara cringed and buried her flushed face in her hands.

“Can I blame it on the concussion and never speak of it again?”

The Chief laughed.

“Stop! I don’t think he’s ever going to forgive me.” Kara batted the Chief’s hand away, as she shrugged as if to say, _no great loss_.

The Chief looked at Kara carefully, and for a while she didn’t say anything, oddly enough Kara didn’t find herself uncomfortable at all.

“So, tell me all about it.”

“Don’t we have some sort of coffee arrangement for these discussions.”

“Sam has warned me that if I provide you with caffeine in any form, my life won’t be worth living.”

“Ah.” Kara paused. “I don’t think there’s all that much that I can tell you. First of all, I was sort of behind the door, then underneath it.” Kara pointed to her head. “Then the corridor was full of smoke. Then I was outside and it had all but taken over the building.”

“Ok.” Lena said absently. “Old building. Did you smell anything?”

 _Did I?_ Kara shut her eyes, and walked through it again. And again. And there it was, on the very edge…

“Yeah. Yeah I did.” She sniffed, trying to recapture the smell. “Yeah, um, chemicals, like the lab sometimes.” Kara opened her eyes and looked straight into the Chiefs.

She sat back. “I think probably not gunfire, you wouldn’t be here right now if it was. I’m guessing sabotage.”

“Someone sabotaged a hospital?”

She nodded. “Looks like it. There’s no source of combustion, only the hot pipes from the boilers running through the rooms to keep the blankets and stuff aired. So I think someone very carefully mixed a chemical cocktail”

Kara nodded along.

“I think it smouldered for a bit, made some heat and when the door was opened it gave it some oxygen and created the fireball.” The Chief finished, watching her closely. “Does that sound likely?”

Kara wasn’t listening properly. “So it was me? I did it? I set fire to the hospital?”

“No, no, no. Absolutely not Miss Danvers, I didn’t mean that at all. Please don’t think – “ She paused, and rested a hand on Kara’s. “The person who mixed the chemicals set fire to the hospital. That wasn’t you.”

“You can’t know that.” Kara said quietly.

“Kara.” The Chief said, squeezing her hand. “I promise you, this was not your fault.”

“Thanks Chief. I, um – “ Kara swallowed. “I’m going to try and get some sleep if that’s ok?”

“Sure.” She released Kara’s hand, and Kara almost grasped her hand back out of instinct.

As she was leaving, she turned around. “Oh and Miss Danvers, please call me Lena. Chief makes me feel like I’m in Star Trek.”

Kara smiled, “Sure. But you have to drop the Miss Danvers. Don’t think I didn’t miss you calling me Kara.”

“I’ll bring the coffee next time.”

“Sounds like a plan. Lena.”

Lena tapped the wooden doorframe and walked through. 20 seconds later Kara saw her walk back past the door having clearly gone in the wrong direction the first time.

Kara spent the rest of the day going over and over things in her mind. Alex had come along to distract her, but she’d been called into a meeting with Doctor Jones and Maggie had been summoned by Captain Lance to begin plotting the next training exercise. But every distraction was just that. A distraction.

 _If I had noticed how warm the handle was_.

Alex had dropped by with a cookie and a quick chat.

_If I had just been paying attention._

Sam was checking vitals again.

 _If I just stopped and thought occasionally_.

Winn was going on and on about a new pod improvement.

_I know the fire had to happen –_

Kara knew that was the case, she knew it had to happen because it already happened. But it was a shock nonetheless to discover that she was the one who might have caused the very catastrophe they went to investigate.

Kara and Lucy were restless for the rest of the day. By unspoken consent they left the lights on. Sam was a constant presence sticking her head round the door and going away again. After an hour she couldn’t take it any longer.

She sat up and, for something to do, rummaged around the box the Ch – _sorry –_ Lena had brought round. There was something knobbly at the bottom. She pulled out a paper-wrapped bundle. Six pieces of chunky charcoal the big stuff.

She looked at them.

Then she looked at the big wall to her left.

The big, blank, wall.

Kara swung her legs out of bed.

“Help me move this table.”

Lucy pushed her blankets aside.

“Should you be doing heavy lifting with a concussion.”

“It’s practically gone now anyway.”

Lucy frowned, and tilted her heads as if to say t _hat is not how it works._

“Why do you need to move the table?”

“I want to stand on it.”

“Um – Do I need to add danger to self to your file?”

Kara scoffed, and tried to move the table by herself, it barely shifted.

Eventually Lucy came over and helped Kara shove the table into place.

Kara clambered up, and once she got started, she couldn’t stop.

Using wide arm movements, she sketched a black sky, lit with starburst shells. Stark figures raced and fell across a cratered landscape.

She drew faster and faster, unable to stop, taking the pictures in her head and transposing them onto the wall. She drew the explosions, the cold, the terror, the heart-breaking waste.

She drew limbs, heads and blood. Men dying on the wire, drowning in the mud, eyes wide, mouths gaping, hands clawing. It just poured out in a way it hadn’t since Eliza Danvers had put her into art therapy at the ripe old age of 15.

Beside her, Lucy added her own contributions.

At some point, Sam came in, watched and surprisingly said nothing. They moved the table out and Kara drew the reception tent. She drew rows of soldiers, wrapped in blankets, and coats, all stiff and heavy with mud and blood.

Kara drew cold, grey, vacant faces; faces contorted with pain, screaming and crying. The last piece of charcoal crumbled and flaked in her bandaged hands with the pressure.

A hand reached out and touched her shoulder.

“Enough.” Sam gave her shoulder a squeeze and stepped back.

Kara blinked, turned and saw that a crowd of people had gathered behind them.

Alex was stood slightly ahead of everyone else, with a hand pressed to her chest, eyes swimming.

Beside her were Lena and Winn both of their mouths pressed into a thin line.

Sam eventually shuffled everyone bar Alex out into the corridor. Alex just rushed forward and pulled them both into a hug. Kara vaguely aware of hugging her back, but mostly she was just staring at the wall.

“Kar.” Alex said quietly beside her. “Come on let’s get you back into bed. Change those bandages. Grab a cup of tea.”

Alex gently steered her towards the bed.

“I bet Sam will even let me sugar load it for you.”

Kara let out a short huff.

“I thought we agreed to never let her know about that.”

“We’ll pretend it’s a one off.”

Kara didn’t respond, and just curled herself around Alex who’d rested her hip on the corner of the bed.

Over her head, Alex nodded to where Sam was hovering holding bandages and various creams. Quietly she deposited them on the bedside table and left to make the tea.

Eventually Kara unfurled herself enough for Alex to change the bandages and reapply the salve. Twenty minutes after that Alex had flicked the lights off, settled herself in the chair between Kara and Lucy’s bed and was settling herself down for a long night when she saw Sam approach with a pillow and a blanket.

“It’s not worth me telling you to leave is it?”

“Nope.” Alex popped the P, and gratefully accepted the items.

“Fine. But if you complain about a bad neck or back in your next physical, I’ll ground you for a month.”

Alex smirked and ran her fingers along her mouth in a zipping motion.

Sam rolled her eyes and retreated to her office. “You all should come with a warning.”

 

* * *

 

 

It was a few weeks later, when Kara and Lucy sat side by side under the boards of honour. It was November 11th, and whilst it was Veterans Day for them, it was Remembrance Day in Britain.

They’d submitted their reports the week before, and had privately agreed that they’d pay their respects today. Most of those who had died in the fire had been British, with a few French and Commonwealth soldiers.

The two of them sat together, in full uniform, Kara had even shined her shoes, and silently remembered. At some point, Kara had grabbed Lucy’s hand. In her mind she saw the tents, the rows of wounded, saw their faces and heard the guns that never seemed to go away.

Eventually Kara dragged herself back into the present as Doctor J’onzz approached.

“Miss Lane, Miss Danvers, I was told I could find you here.” He pulled two slips of paper from his pocket and gave one to each of them.

They were both identical, saying the same thing.

“It’s a poem from the First World War. It might offer some comfort to you both today.”

And that was all he said before he limped back out of the room.

Lucy read the words aloud,

“They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old.” Her voice cracked, and Kara grasped her hand again.

“Age shall not weary them, not the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning. We will remember them.”

Kara felt looked up at the ceiling, eyes blurring with tears.

It was cathartic, to sit side by side with a friend, remembering, and being able to put some closure on what they had experienced.

Kara looked back towards the door, she had expected Mike to join them today, hoping that he could put what had happened behind them, in order to pay his own respects. But it seemed that wouldn’t be the case.

Lucy let go of Kara’s hand and bent to place the poem against the wall.

“C’mon Little Danvers, lets go rescue Alex from her useless hovering.”

Kara smirked, she could see the shadows in the corridor that were clearly Alex, and if the smaller stature was anything to go by, Maggie.

"I’d just like to say how offended I am by everyone’s insistence in calling me that.”

“Sure. Sure. Please direct all complaints to a one Maggie Sawyer.”

“Come on Luce, I’ve got a good inch and a bit on her.”

“And you’ve both got several inches on both me and Mags, so – “

Lucy shrugged and Kara pouted.

“At this rate only Lena’s going to be calling me by my actual name.”

“Well then I’m sure you can go moan to _Lena._ I’m sure she’d be very attentive.”

Kara’s spluttering was mistaken for emotional distress as they entered the corridor where Maggie and Alex were waiting.

“Are you ok?” Alex asked hastily, taking in her sisters red face and inability to form actual words.

“She’s fine. Just thinking about what the Chief’s going to give her for her birthday.”

If Kara had been blushing before, she might well have been sunbathing on the face of the sun with how red she was now.

“Oh.” Alex said pulling back, then she raised an eyebrow. “ _Oh…”_

“Nope.” Kara squeaked, walking quickly down the corridor. “Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.”

Alex, Maggie and Lucy could still hear the echoing “Nopes” as Kara finally made her escape from the building.

 

* * *

 

 

Kara’s birthday was soon upon them, she’d remembered Maggie saying once how such a sunny personality shouldn’t have a winter birthday. Alex had moved the subject swiftly on, not wanting to dwell on just how hard Kara has had to work to make happiness and excitability such a big part of her personality. But when November 16th rolled around Kara was more than happy to exude the excitability she was known for.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” Kara shot bolt upright, narrowly avoiding smacking the intruder in the face with her head.

“Alex. Holy shit.” Kara placed a hand on her chest, her heart racing.

“Happy birthday you dweeb.” Alex bounced onto her bed, sitting cross legged at Kara’s feet.

“Thanks.” Kara’s blankets fell to the floor as she gave her sister a hug. It was only looking around the room that she saw there were banners and balloons pinned to her walls that weren’t there before.

“What on earth?”

“You slept right through it, dead to the world.” Alex smiled, before reaching onto the floor and pulling up a neatly wrapped gift.

“It’s not a lot, because I haven’t had the chance to get out, and Amazon stopped delivering here after the ‘leave in a safe space’ incident with Professor Hunter.”

Kara pulled open the box and nestled inside was a photo album. Opening on the first page Kara’s eyes immediately welled up.

“Where on earth did you get that picture?”

Kara was staring at the faces of her much, much younger parents.

“Me and Lucy had a jump back to 1989, fall of the Berlin Wall from the US perspective.  And well, we were in Metropolis, and as you know so were your parents, in the pre-you universe.”

“That’s risky!” Kara raised an eyebrow; it was a steadfast rule that you can’t have two versions of the same person in the same timeline. But Alex was born in 1991 with Kara the following year, but there was a reason it was rare to go back to living memory history, and that was that if the coordinates were even slightly out you could be in some serious trouble.

“Not really, Me and Luce are both 27, it was moderately comfortable, plus it was an important democratic moment.”

Kara rolled her still watery eyes.

“Besides, Lucy really enjoyed pretending she was a photographer doing a profile for Time magazine.”

“You interacted as well!”

“Technicalities.” Alex waved off, but smiled softly at her sister.

“Thank-you.” Kara almost whispered, she ran her fingers over the photo of her parents, still 3 years out from marriage and Kara herself.

“I mean, there is more, but none are quite as good as that.” Alex shrugged, wiping a tear away from Kara’s cheek.

Kara flipped through the rest of the album, laughing at photos of the two of them as they’d grown through their teenage years, even ones from Kara’s digs in South America, long before she knew of St Deo’s true existence.

The ones that made her smile the most however were the most recent ones.

Winn and James trying to throw jelly beans into her mouth from across the hall.

Maggie literally hanging off Kara’s arm, as Kara tried to prove that she did indeed have biceps of steel.

Kara and Alex having an intense stare off over a game of battleships.

It made Kara’s heart soar to see, these people were her family.

“Get dressed, and head downstairs. I heard Lucy had talked the kitchens into pancakes for breakfast.  Even Sam is excited.”

Alex bounced off the bed again, leaning to give Kara a bone-crunching hug.

“Love you Kar.”

“Love you too, Al.”

Alex was exiting the room, when she came to a halt.

“Oh.”

Kara tried to peer around the corner from where she was still sat on the bed.

“I think this is for you?” Alex picked up the box that had been sitting directly in front of Kara’s door.

Alex gave it to Kara, stepped back but didn’t leave. Obviously as curious as Kara as to what was inside.

The small box was neatly wrapped in coloured paper, and Kara did a little wiggle in excitement.

“Who’s this from?” Kara asked, looking around the box for some identifying feature.

“No idea, everyone else is waiting downstairs with theirs.”

“Mike?” Kara questioned. Alex just scoffed. As expected he’d never spoken about the explosion or the fire, and instead, just carried on as if nothing had happened, clearly expecting everyone else to do the same. Kara wondered if this was him trying to make amends.

She slowly eased the lid off the box and squealed. Inside the box, nestled a small statue. A model of the Trojan horse.  It wasn’t big, maybe six inches tall and perfectly crafted. Its face was delicately carved and even the trapdoor in its belly was perfect.

Kara cradled it to her chest and settled it on her bedside table.

“I’m going to get dressed and meet you down there.” Kara said, giving Alex a hug and then shoved her out the door.

As she exited the residential area, Mike handed her a box of chocolates then ran off in the opposite direction, stating that Captain Lance was after him.

_If these are from him, whose was the horse?_

“Um – Thanks?!” Kara yelled after him. She was trying to read the tag on the chocolate box and run down the stairs at the same time instead she collided with Lena who was going up.

“Pretty sure you’re supposed to keep to the right,” Lena smiled, steadying Kara with a hand on her shoulder.

“Sorry Lena!” Kara grimaced. “Are you OK?”

“All in one piece, I promise. And a Happy Birthday to you.” Lena took her hand from Kara’s shoulder and started fiddling with her hands, almost like she was embarrassed.

And then something clicked in Kara’s head.

 _How did I ever think it was Mike?!_ _He could never make something that thoughtful._

Kara blinked for a second.

_She got me a gift._

_She got me a perfect gift._

_Lena **made** me a gift. _

_Oh good lord_.

Then Kara grinned. Her whole face brightened and she was looking at Lena like she’d hung the stars themselves.

 _Don’t read to much into this Kara_.

But without missing a beat, Kara said, “Thank you for the present. Its beautiful.”

Lena’s face blushed and she looked Kara in the eyes, unlocking her hands and straightening her shoulders.

“Keep it safe”

Kara felt slightly offended by the thought that she might lose it or break it. She didn’t have enough possessions that she could afford to be careless with any of them and certainly not this one.

“Seriously,” she said, the smile dropping from her face slightly. “Kara, I mean it. Keep it safe and keep it to hand. It’s important.”

Kara nodded, a sense of uneasiness swelling inside of her.

“Now. I think you have somewhere you need to be.” Lena said, the seriousness of her voice making way for a playful lilt.

“Oh! Yeah!” Kara said, springing slightly on the tips of her toes. “You coming?”

Lena tilted her head, considering the offer.

“Well Sam has been declaring that it’s pancake o’clock for the last half an hour, so it would be rude to miss it.”

“Then may I request the pleasure of your company Chief Luthor.” Kara bowed slightly and offered her elbow.

Lena just grinned, looked at the floor and accepted the elbow gracefully.

“It would be my pleasure Miss Danvers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the slight delay. I seem to have developed a social life and it’s expwnsife and time consuming!
> 
> Anyway, 
> 
> Here's another chapter, I hope you enjoyed. Kara and Lena are growing closer, Alex is soft, Sam is soft, Lucy is snarky and Mike's an arse - Everything is right in the world. 
> 
> Let me know you thoughts, if you're hitting up London pride or y'know if you're bored!
> 
> You can catch me at super-super-gay on tumblr


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